Trails to woods and waters

TRAILS TO WOOi;:.
AND WATERS

CLARENCE HAWKES

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE

NOSTRILS DISTENDED, EYES BLAZING, His WHOLE

ATTITUDE BELLIGERENT See page 146

Trails to
Woods and Waters

By
CLARENCE HAWKES

Author of "Shaggy coat" "Black Bruint'
" King of theThundering Herd," etc.

ILLUSTRATED BT

CHARLES COPELAND

PHILADELPHIA

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1920, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY

All rights reserved
Printedin U. S. A.

Dedicated to the Boy Scouts and the
Campfire Girls of America by one
who sympathizes with them in all
their outdoors sports and recreations

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Some of the material published
in this book has appeared in two
of Mr. Hawkes' earlier works which
are now out of print.

TIJE BOOKS OF CLARENCE
HAWKES

IT is with a feeling of awe and wonder that
I take up each new book from the pen of
Clarence Hawkes. Here is the born nature-
lover, the woodsman, the chronicler and the
painter of mental pictures who for a few brief
years looked into the pulsing heart of Nature,
focused his mental camera upon her during a
few brilliant days, and then suddenly, with a
stroke like lightning, all the world became
dark.

The work of Clarence Hawkes marks the
triumph of an indomitable human Soul over
darkness and despair. With marvellous
fidelity he paints what he has seen and yet
remembers, and for the rest he gathers his
share of wild animal lore, — just as we all
do, — from the hunter, the trapper, the bird-
man and the brother naturalist. The natural-
ist or nature lover who writes only what he

6 The Books of Clarence Hawkes

himself has seen never goes far; and soon he
begins to travel in circles. From the great
Audubon downward the wise nature writer
judiciously supplements his own observations
with the testimony of others, thus to make the
story complete.

Therefore fear not to accept the stories of
Clarence Hawkes as being true to life; for he
works " even as you and I." The mental pic-
tures of youth often grow sharper with age.
His stories ring true to life. I read them to
my grandchildren with confidence, while they
listen with rapt attention. The wild-animal
hero tale has its legitimate place in literature.
When the impossible is carefully eliminated,
and the details are true to life, what more does
any one desire?

Therefore, take my friends " Shovelhorns "
the moose, " Shaggycoat " the beaver, and
" Black Bruin," and make much of them; for
they are worth it.

And if your ego becomes too colossal, if you
are tempted to rail at Fate, and denounce your
Luck, take " Hitting the Dark Trail " and

The Books of Clarence Hawkes 7

sit down all alone to read it. As the story
unfolds, you will — like me — begin to realize
how much you enjoy in seeing nature day by
day, how much you have to be thankful for,
and then how wicked you are when you
upbraid the Fate that denies you the last ten
per cent of life. Finally, you will look into
your own soul, solemnly ask yourself: " Could
I be as brave as he is, were I in his place? "
and with chastened spirit you will rise up
silently vowing to be a better man.

WILLIAM T. HORNADAY.

Director New York
Zoological Park.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY — THE TRAIL TO WOODS

AND WATERS 13

I. A TALE FROM THE SKIDWAY . .23
II. THE STORY OF WILLOW BROOK . 61

III. A LITTLE DAPPLE FOOL . . 75

IV. THE FAMILY OF BOB-WHITE . .85
V. THE BUSY BEE 109

VI. DOWNSTREAM IN A CANOE . .129

VII. JACKING AND MOOSE-CALLING . .137

VIII. IN BEAVER-LAND . . . .149

IX. ONE'S OWN BACK DOOR-YARD . .167

X. A WARY MOTHER . . . .185

XL A LIVELY BEE HUNT . . .203

XII. THE SPECKLED HEIFER'S CALF . .219

XIII. CAMPING WITH OLD BEN . . .239

XIV. FOREST FOOTFALLS . . . .261
XV. IN THE HUNTER'S MOON . . .273

XVI. A WINTER WALK .... 287

XVII. CAMP FIRE LEGENDS OF THE WOOD

FOLKS 309

List of Illustrations

Nostrils distended, eyes blazing, his

whole attitude belligerent Frontispiece

The fawn had not taken three jumps

when she was after him Facing page 82

He crept forward foot by foot until

he was almost upon him " " 102

It was as pretty a wilderness picture
as ever delighted the eyes of a
woodsman " " 142

Uttering a series of most blood-
curdling screeches and snarls. . " " 234

'Mr. Fox did not finish his remarks " " 260

Turning to look over my shoulder

as I jumped " " 286

He stamped and snorted again, this

time giving a short whistle. ... " " 304

INTRODUCTORY

THE TRAIL TO WOODS AND
WATERS

INTRODUCTORY

The Trail to Woods and Waters

THE trail to woods and waters was a double
one that I followed with eager feet in
summer or in winter.

The first branch of this winding trail
started just under an old pair of bars, where
we let the cows through from a crooked lane
into the barnyard.

Each morning I let down these bars, and
started the cows for pasture and each night
I put them up again when the cows were
driven home.

The trail wound about many a grassy
hillock or mossy hollow and around many
a jagged stone through the lane to the pas-
ture, for it was a cows' path, and all cow
paths are crooked. Many a sharp stone
lurked in ambush for bare feet.

1 6 Introductory

What boy of you who reads these pages
ever warmed his cold feet on a frosty morn-
ing in the flattened down grass where the old
cow had slept the night before, keeping the
earth warm and inviting for blue, aching
toes?

All the way of its many turns and twists,
this trail to the woods was fringed with weeds
and grasses, with flowers and bushes, many
of which were hung with delicious fruit.

Just at the point where the lane led into
the pasture, a golden sweet apple tree stood.
Here I always stopped, not only to refresh
myself with a half dozen apples, but also to
shy apples at the red squirrels that were al-
ways scolding and frisking about in the
tree.

Further out in the pasture the trail led
under a leaning apple tree. The tree was so
much inclined that I called it the leaning
tower. I could stand perfectly erect and
walk up the trunk of the tree without taking
hold with my hands — the only tree on the
farm that admitted of such a stunt. Here,

Introductory 1 7

perched upon the trunk of this friendly tree,
about twenty feet from the ground, I would
sit for five minutes, looking off across the
country to see if anything out of the ordinary
was doing. Perhaps in the mowing, beyond
the pasture I would spy a woodchuck sitting
erect, looking for all the world like a small
black stump, or maybe I would discover a
hawk sailing high up in the heavens. If so, I
would watch the big bird and try to discover
what he was hunting.

Further on, the trail led by great clumps
of raspberries! and blackberries. At these
spots, I always stopped for refreshments.
Only those who have tasted the wild fruit
directly from the vine or bush, know its de-
licious flavor.

Still further on the trail led into a maple
grove and this was the beginning of the sweet
green woods. In this maple grove I loved to
linger, for it was the sugar bush.

It did not take much imagination to see
the trees each with a painted bucket dan-
gling upon its side, or to hear the musical

1 8 Introductory

drip, drip, drip, of s the sap into the pails.
This was what I called " The Song of the
Sap." To make the picture complete how-
ever, I had to imagine white clouds of smoke
and steam pouring from the sugar house, and
this was difficult on a hot summer's day.

The sugar orchard was the home of the
gray squirrels, and it was a delight to sit per-
fectly still upon an old log and see if one
could discover a squirrel dropping down
maple seeds, and if so to spy out the gray
fellow high up in the treetop balancing him-
self nicely upon a small limb, getting his
breakfast.

In hot weather it was so cool and sweet in
the slumbrous aisles of the maple grove that
there was always a temptation to linger, while
the silver-footed moments of summertime
sped by.

The trail to the waters was out in the
meadow in front of the old farmhouse in
which I lived. But the trail did not start
there.

One day I took my lunch and followed the

Introductory 1 9

little stream for a mile up through the
meadows to its source, just to see where the
trail really did begin.

I tramped by many a swaying clump of
willows, or green cattails. The sweet flag I
always marked down in my mind, for I would
come some other day and dig the root which,
when it was cured with sugar and spice, was
fit for a king.

Many a time I was fooled, thinking I had
found the beginning of the trail, but when I
would poke away the grass I would find that
the tiny stream went still further back for its
source. At last I found it however, high up
in a hillside. It was a small basin perhaps a
foot across, fringed with ferns and water
grasses and in its middle the water pure, cool
and sweet, bubbled up in a tiny living foun-
tain. Up from the cool sweet earth it gushed,
a thing of wonder and beauty.

It was evening when I returned home and
I was late in driving home the cows, but I felt
well repaid for the long tramp, for I had
found the secret of the little stream. I had

2O Introductory

followed the trail to the waters from its very
beginning.

The course of the trail from that point was
well known to me.

The source alone had been its mystery.

I knew all its deep holes and the rapids,
where the speckled trout loved to lie, and the
pebbly shallows where the minnows darted,
and the deep hole where the lazy suckers
stood with head up-stream sucking in their
dinner.

I knew the bank where the noisy kingfisher
had his nest, and his favorite stump from
which he loved to fish.

The broad pool where the heron speared
fish, and the tall grasses that hid the musk-
rat's house.

All the little waterfalls, including the
one that turned the small water wheel, I
knew.

I knew the brook in spring when it ran
riot, in summer when it had dwindled to a
tiny thread, in the autumn, when the life
along its banks was nipped by the first frost,

Introductory 2 1

and in the winter when Jack Frost had sealed
up all the pools for their winter sleep.

I had followed this trail to the waters often,
down to the broad deep mill pond, where once
I thought it ended.

The mill pond was, to this trail to the
waters, what the forest was to the trail to the
woods — its consummation, and end. The
point at which it ceased to be, and became
something larger and better.

CHAPTER I
A TALE FROM THE SKIDWAYi

CHAPTER I

A Tale from the Skidway

A BARE-FOOTED, tanned-faced boy, dressed
in brown denim overalls and a jumper, sat
astride a mammoth pine log in the mill yard,
carving his initials in bold letters in the soft
bark of the pine. He whistled and smiled
as he carved and seemed well content with
his occupation and surroundings.

It was always a pleasure for the boy to be
about the mill. The hurrying belts, the mad
gearing and the screaming circular saw were
all wonderful. There was a certain poetry
and rhythm in this mad rushing machinery
that fascinated, even while it terrified. The
boy never could quite understand how the
water which slipped so easily into the end of
the flume, only laving his hand slightly as he
held it in the current, could be turned into
such mad careering force.

26 Trails to Woods and Waters

When one tired of %the hum of wheels and
the pounding of belting and the hideous
shrieking of the great circular saw, there was
always the mill yard to flee to. There the
sounds from the mill were all subdued and
the placid mill pond, and a fringe of green
hills beyond offset the turbulence of the mill.

The initials were finally completed and the
boy drove his knife deep into the log and
viewed his carving critically.

It did not just suit him, the bark should
come off, to make a panel, and then the
initials should be carved in the wood instead
of the bark, this would be much more artistic,
so he gashed the bark savagely, making a
rather unsymmetrical square about the
initials.

" I wish you would stop," said a deep mel-
low voice from the heart of the log. " I don't
want to be scarred and hacked when I take
my turn on the carriage before the saw. I
want to be as nearly perfect as I can, now I
am cut in pieces."

The boy pulled the knife from the bark

A Tale from the Skidway 27

quickly, shut it with a snap and put it into
his pocket.

He had often heard the trees and wild-
flowers talk in the deep woods, but never a
log, and he wished to know more of the
monster pine on which he was sitting.

" I did not know you cared," he said sym-
pathetically. " I thought you were only a
log, and would soon be sawed into boards, so
a few extra cuts would not make any differ-
ence."

" Only a butt-log," sighed the old pine, and
its voice had a touch of melancholy, like the
soughing of wind in pine needles. " Only a
butt-log! That is what most people think,
but I am more than that. I am a personality.
A memory beside which all the other mem-
ories in the countryside pale and are as
nothing, unless I make an exception of the
memories of the mountains and the cliffs, near
which I stood; of course they are older and
wiser than I. But I am still a noble memory
and a personality as mysterious and rich as
the odor of my needles on a fresh summer

28 Trails to Woods and Waters

breeze, when the sun has warmed my thought
and stirred me to speak of other days. The
things that I have seen would fill a large
book, and the memories would all be sweet
and wholesome."

" I do not see how you could have seen very
much," said the boy skeptically. " You have
always been the sentinel pine, standing on
the brow of the mountain. My grandfather
says you stood there just as you did last year
when he was a small boy. You could not
stir from the spot. How could you have seen
much? "

" I was patient and observing and the
world came to me," replied the pine thought-
fully. " I will tell you my story and then
you will see.

" About two hundred and fifty years ago,
or thirty or forty years after the Pilgrims
landed at Plymouth, a tiny white pine seed
parted company with the cone that bore it
and floated leisurely down through the balmy
spring atmosphere. It had been two years in
forming and was glad to escape from its

A Tale from the Skidway 29

parent tree and venture into the world on its
own account.

" Just at the particular moment that the
seed freed itself from the cone, there came a
slight puff of wind, that influenced the after-
life of the seed greatly, for it wafted it forty
or fifty feet into the forest, and deposited it
in a dark gloomy hollow.

" This tiny seed was a very insignificant
looking thing, seemingly of no more worth
than a grain of sand. But here appearances
were most deceitful, for the seed held a secret
more precious than all else in the world, the
secret of life, which with all his inquisitive-
ness and his genius for finding out things,
man has never been able to discover. If that
seed could have told the world what it knew
that spring morning, the scientist would have
hugged himself with delight.

" But the little seed was very modest and
unconscious of its importance. It lay there
in the mold where the playful spring zephyr
had dropped it, and dreamed while the
summer days went by.

30 Trails to Woods and Waters

" Sometimes when the day was warmer
than usual, and the heat penetrated to the
deep gloom of the dense forest, the seed felt
a longing or a desire, for something, it knew
not what. Then it seemed to the seed that
something was calling to it from above, but
the feeling soon passed and the seed kept on
dreaming.

" At other times the seed was conscious of
.power within itself, a force that made it rest-
less, a memory that was calling, a desire that
was stirring, a hope that had not yet been
fulfilled. Finally one warm summer morning
the seed thought it felt something tugging
at its very inner self. Then it awoke, and
pushed up through the mold.

" It was much brighter and more cheerful
above the mold and the seed was glad that
it had obeyed the call, but who it was that
called it, the seed did not at first know.
Finally, down through the treetops there fell
a warm pencil of light, vibrant and delicious.

" It touched the tiny, pale sprouting seed-
ling with its warmth and then the seedling

A Tale from the Skidway 31

knew that it was its foster father, the sun,
who had been calling all through the summer
hours. Henceforth, its mother, the earth,
and its foster father, the sun, would nourish
and sustain it in sunshine and storm, in heat
and cold.

" Two years went hy and there was only
a tiny tuft of green to show for the seven
hundred odd days. For, living as it did in the
deep forest, under the skirts of large trees,
fifteen minutes of sunlight a day was all the
little seedling got, and one cannot grow very
fast on such short rations. It would have
liked to walk out into the sunlight and
warmth, but God had placed it in the gloom,
so it stayed there and lived its life the best it
could.

" On the little pine's fifth birthday, one
could have covered it with a tumbler, so
slowly it grew.

" When it was ten years old a four quart
pail would have screened it from the world,
while on its twenty-first birthday, when it
was of age, a bushel basket would have cov-

32 Trails to Woods and Waters

ered it. A white pine in the open would have
been much larger at this age, but this pine
was a victim of circumstances, during its sap-
ling years.

" After this I grew much faster than I
had done before, for the tip of my blue green
plumes now reached a pencil of light for
which I had been long stretching.

" So instead of a scant fifteen minutes of
sunlight a day, I now had an hour of my
foster father's gracious smile.

"How it warmed and cheered me! Be-
fore, I had been gloomy and foreboding, but
now I became hopeful and cheerful, and full
of great longings. Before, it had seemed to
me that I would never get out of the dark-
ness and the damp mold. Now, I was sure
that some day I would be almost as tall as
the great monarch pine from which I had
sprung.

" The first two decades of my life had been
spent almost entirely in the bosom of my
mother, the earth. Now I belonged partly
to the earth, and partly to the sun. I could

A Tale froflu the Skidway 3 3

not but obey the new impulse within me to
stretch up and out. I had been sleeping, had
been a dullard and a stupid, and must make
up for lost time.

" From being almost afraid of my foster
father, the sun, I began to love him, and to
look for his coming, as a child for its parent.
I was lonely when he was hidden from me;
true, he always sent his hand-maiden, the
moon, to cheer us through the night, but her
smile was not so bright and inspiring as that
of the glorious sun.

" By the time I was thirty years old, I
had reached the height of a man, and felt
every inch of my hard-gained height. The
rabbit could no longer jump over me and
make me feel mean and small, as he had done
years before. He had to run around me now,
and I laughed at him and felt glad for every
inch of my height. The snows of winter no
longer bowed me down, as they had done
when I was small, nearly breaking my back,
and covering me until I could not see the
world. I could now keep my head above even

34 Trails to Woods and Waters

a fair sized drift. But the ice storms I still
feared, for they occasionally bowed me down
so that they nearly broke my back.

" About this time, I bore my first cone,
and if it needed anything more to make me
vain, it was this. My parent, the great pine
at the edge of the woods, had been rattling
down cones ever since I could remember, and
I had never had even a sign of a cone. When
that first cone fell, I felt as though I had
parted company with the most precious thing
in the world, but when I found that they
came every second year, I was comforted.

" When I was about forty years old, I had
a narrow escape from destruction. Up to
this time, all the men that I had known had
been red men, and I wish they had been the
only men the forest had ever known. If they
had been, it would not be the sorry sight it
is now. These quiet, nature-loving men came
and went under the branches of the forest as
silently as the deer and the panther. They
seemed a part of the woods, and we looked
for their coming and going as we did that of

A Tale from the Skidway 35

the seasons. But finally the white man came.
He awoke the forest with new and terrible
lightning, before which the deer and the
panther were powerless, and the red man
melted away like the snowbanks in early
spring. But worst of all, this white man
brought with him an implement, keen and
bright, which he calls an axe. Ever since the
day of his coming the echoes of the axe have
resounded through the forest, and one by one
my kind have been laid low. As you know,
I was the last of the first growth pines on
the mountain side.

" As I have already said, when I was about
forty years old, this white man came with
his axe. The first time I saw him, he was
blazing a wood road through the forest.

" He was picking out a path that should
be smooth in winter, and as straight as he
could make it, without too much work. He
lopped down a sapling here, and a clump of
bushes there, and every few feet, he stopped
and blazed a tree. This blazed tree would
show him the road when the snow was piled

36 Trails to Woods and Waters

so deep that other landmarks would be oblit-
erated. He stopped close to me and sighted
from one blazed tree to another. Would
I be in the way? That was the question. He
seemed to think I would, for he raised his axe.
A shudder ran through me, and I thought of
a maple sapling that he had just laid low.
I knew I never would rise again, for I had
seen trees blown over in a great storm and
they never did.

" Then the man lowered his axe and
stopped to consider. Perhaps I would not
be in the way after all, or maybe the road
would be too rough if it went just where I
stood, for he changed the mark on the last
tree, blazing the opposite side, and went on,
and I was allowed to stand.

" All through the autumn and winter there
were strange foreign sounds in the forest.
For days at a time there would be the cease-
less ring of the axe and occasionally that
thundering crash, that told of one of our
number laid low. Then when the logs had
been cut and piled, teams came into the woods

A Tale from the Skidway 37

and loaded them and they were hauled down
into the valley, where they were hewed into
timber and builded into rude cabins. If any-
thing more was needed to make me vain, it
came when a pretty little pair of forest
warblers built the daintiest nest, that ever
you saw, in my boughs.

" To think that they had chosen me instead
of some of the taller trees for their abiding
place, filled me with such pride that it is a
wonder that I did not crack my bark. All
through summer they stayed with me going
and coming from the nest, feeding and rear-
ing their fledglings and I was the happiest,
vainest little pine in all the great woods.
When the strong winds howled in the tree-
tops, bending them and sometimes even
breaking off branches, I stood stiff-backed
and resolute, and tried with all my sturdy
might not to rock the little downhair lined
nest among my green plumes lest I spill some
of the joy that it contained.

" When at last the fledglings grew up and
the whiole family deserted me, I felt as lone-

38 Trails to Woods and Waters

some as a solitary tree out in the open, but
I kept the nest for a long time as a remem-
brance.

" The second winter of the lumbering op-
erations in the forest where I lived, some-
thing happened that filled me with grief and
nearly wiped me off the face of the white
snow-covered world as well. It also set me
to thinking of how uncertain a thing life is,
even for a small insignificant little pine.

" I had often seen the lumberman casting
admiring glances at my sire the old sentinel
pine, as they passed, but their admiration
was the admiration of greed as I soon dis-
covered. It does not pay to be too much
admired in a covetous world like this. One
day, one of the choppers came and began
hacking away at the old pine, under whose
protecting arm I had been reared. How
grand he looked, and how small and insig-
nificant these two puny wood-cutters! But
how untiring they plied their axes, and what
deep cuts those sharp blades made when they
fell! I saw the white chips fly out on the

A Tale from the Skidway 39

snow and wondered if it hurt my sire to have
his sap chipped out like that. At first I
thought he would be able to withstand them,
I had seen him battle successfully with the
hurricane so many times, but I soon saw that
he was doomed, and a deep sense of loneliness
came over me, even before I saw him laid
low.

" Finally I saw the two choppers looking
up at the dark blue tip-top plumes of the giant
tree, which were sharply silhouetted against
the sky. Already the giant tree had begun to
totter and waver, like an old man who leans
upon his staff. First he swayed a bit one
way, and then the other, and finally, with a
great rush of wind that was like the roar of
a mighty tempest, and a cloud of snow that
was thrown up as it struck, the noble pine
lay upon the breast of its mother earth, never
to rise again.

" My sire had fallen within ten feet of me,
and, had I been struck, I should have been
broken to bits.

" Once, while they were limbing out the

40 Trails to Woods and Waters

great pine, one of the% choppers said he would
cut me down, as I was right in the way. I
did not care much if he did, the fall of my
sire had so saddened me, but the other
chopper told him to notice how tall and
straight I was, and how symmetrical. ' Some
day that will be as fine a tree as this,' he said,
so I was allowed to stand.

" When the great pine had been cut into
logs and drawn away, there was a broad gap
in the woods where it had stood. I now got
a full blaze of sunlight and all the winds that
had formerly buffeted the sentinel. The sun
made me grow rapidly, and perhaps even the
winds which I at first thought very cold and
boisterous helped to develop me. At least
they taught me to strike my roots deep in the
earth and hold on with might and main.

" Fifty more years went by, and I stood
at the edge of the forest where my sire had
stood and took the buffets of the wind, and
the smile of my foster father, the sun, and
was glad, after the manner of a pine. Glad
for the sunlight and the cold, the rain and

A Tale from the Skidway 41

the dew; glad for the rich mold in which I
stood, and for the blue sky above me.

" I could never tell you all my thoughts
as I stood there, while spring and summer,
autumn and winter, went by. Sometimes
when the sun warmed my needles, a rich aro-
matic odor, full of sweet memories, the mem-
ories and longings of a pine, would float out
on the merry breeze.

" I saw the beech and the maple put forth
their first tiny buds and open their myriad
leaves in the springtime, and I saw them
stripped of all their glory in the autumn to
make a carpet for the forest. They were
changeable, sometimes gay and glorious in
green or scarlet robes, but I was always the
same. I never changed my deep blue green
mantle, and to the nature lover I was always
the dark, restful pine, perhaps sad, but I
merely reflected the life about me, or maybe
my melancholy was tinged by that of the
wind, which was always moaning and sighing
in my needles.

" Who shall guess my thoughts on lonely

42 Trails to Woods and Waters

winter nights, as I stood guard at the edge
of the forest, when the Pleiades was so cold
and glittering that it seemed like a panoply
of spear points, and the six points of the Great
Bear might have been six icicles? Who shall
guess what things I saw when the prowling
fox barked in the cavernous aisles of the snow-
bound forest, while the weird hooting of an
arctic owl woke mysterious echoes in the
woods? Who but I knows just how the
rabbits play tag of a winter's night, when the
moon is at her full, and the crust glints and
glistens like a pavement of diamonds?

" Was I lonely as I stood there, druid-like
and hoary, with my coverlet of snow and ice,
forsaken by the birds and squirrels, and by
even the little wood-mouse that dwelt beneath
my roots?

" Did I long for a sigh of the south wind,
and a whisper from the sleeping hepatica, and
arbutus; did I yearn for the coming of
spring?

" Ah, who shall say? These are the in-
scrutable secrets of nature, that man with all

A Tale from the Skidway 43

his inquisitiveness cannot find out. Men may
hew and hack me, may saw and burn me, may
grind me into pulp and make paper of me,
but they will never tear this secret from my
breast.

" Yon saw that howls like a demon and
whose bright teeth are hungry for my heart
will make man no wiser. The secret is na-
ture's own, and she guards it well.

" If you will count the rings upon my cross-
section from one hundred and five to one
hundred and nine, you will find that they
come very close together. In fact they al-
most coincide, and only the very best eyesight
can discern them. This, too, tells a bit of my
history. These contracted rings represent
three very cold summers and winters, due to
a season of spots upon the sun. During these
cold years the plants and trees grew very lit-
tle, and even what they did grow in the sum-
mer was contracted and dwarfed in the
winter.

" How ghastly and sickly my foster father,
the sun, looked for these three years. How

44 Trails to Woods and Waters

feeble and unsatisfying his smile, that had
usually been so warm and loving.

" He was not like himself at all, and it was
a great relief to me when he was again bright
and cheerful.

" It was the wind that finally humbled my
pride and made me bow my haughty head. I
had long thought I was the strongest thing
in the world and I had no fear of wind or
storm. Once I had been struck by lightning
and I still bear the scar, one hundred and
forty rings back from my bark, but I soon
recovered from that.

" But the wind, that went mad, and tore
at the heart of the forest taught me the great-
est lesson I ever learned and that was the
lesson of humility. Then I understood that
no matter how strong one may think himself
there is always something stronger, that will
some day humble him.

" One afternoon early in August} when I
was one hundred and fifty years old, the sky
grew suddenly green and a strange calm was
over everything.

A Tale from the Skidway 45

" Now for the earth to look green was all
right, but for the sky to assume a strange
copper colored green was all wrong, so the
trees began stirring their leaves restlessly,
although there was no wind, and one could
not have discovered how it was done.

" Then a green and yellow funnel, edged
with pink and saffron, and fringed with black
was seen trailing along the earth. When it
drew nearer it was seen that there was a
mighty commotion at the lower end of this
funnel, where there was a churning and roll-
ing and tumbling, with quick flashes of light-
ning, and fringes of cloud that looked like
rain or mist.

" The nearer the funnel-shaped cloud drew
to the forest the more incessant became the
churning and roaring and the brighter the
lightning. The birds and the squirrels scur-
ried to their hiding-places, and the two great
fish-hawks that had built their nest in my
branches that spring, flew screaming home.

" On came this great seething, maddened
funnel of wind and lightning, rain and hail,

46 Trails to Woods and Waters

filled with clouds of dust and sticks. As it
drew nearer, trees and all kinds of debris
were seen rolling and tumbling, grinding and
breaking.

" When the cloud storm dipped down to
the forest, great trees bent and broke or were
blown over and uprooted. Giants that had
withstood the tempests of centuries, went over
like ninepins, and for the first time in my
life I was afraid.

" At first when it struck me, I stood up
proudly. I had never before bowed my head,
and why should I now? But it only took a
very few seconds for me to see the folly of
such a course. So I bent and swayed,
thrashed and writhed, and so far as I could,
obeyed the cyclone. It stripped me of many
of my branches and bent me down until my
back was ready to break. Then with a roar
like continuous thunder, and a constant play
of lightning, with a torrent of hail and rain,
and a blinding cloud of dust and debris of
every kind, the cyclone sucked half of my
blue green plumes of which I was so proud

A Tale from the Skidway 47

into the whirling, seething vortex, and swept
on, leaving me writhing, twisting, and groan-
ing, torn, bent and bleeding with my bark
hanging in long white shreds.

" How humiliated and crushed I felt as I
tried to straighten my half broken back and
untangle my split and broken limbs, from
which many of the green plumes had been
blown. I had been so proud but a few min-
utes before ! Sure of my own great strength
and thinking that nothing could make me
bow my haughty head.

" That evening when the stars appeared
and the soft night winds sighed in my torn
plumes, the pale moon beheld not the haughty
old sentinel pine, but an humble tree, most
of whose symmetry and beauty had departed.

" But time heals all such wounds as these,
and as the summers and winters came and
went, the green plumes were again luxuriant
upon my branches and new limbs appeared,
or the old ones spread and branched, to cover
up my fine trunk, and again I was sym-
metrical and beautiful as only a tree can be.

48 Trails to Woods and Waters

" After this my. life went on peacefully
and uneventfully for fifty years more. Men
came and went in the valley below, crawling
slowly like worms and from my great height
they seemed like ants. They built their little
block houses, and in them lived their lives of
joy and sorrow, while I stood guard on the
brow of the hill. Occasionally men came into
the woods and hacked and scarred the ancient
forest, but I went unscathed.

" The red man no longer camped under
my friendly boughs and the deer and the bear,
and the tall moose had disappeared from the
forest. But I still had the birds and squirrels
and all the small creatures whose pitter-patter
in the leaves I knew so well.

" The jay and the crow nested in my
branches and the red squirrel could make a
fair meal upon my cones when he was hungry.
But the fish-hawks, who had builded in my
branches before the great storm, were gone.
Their nests have been blown to bits, and one
of the great birds killed in the cyclone.

" Many a little forest warbler also found

A Tale from the Skidway 49

how good a resting place were my branches.
So their love notes mingled in the springtime
with the soft soughing of the wind in my
needles.

" When I was about two hundred years
old there came such a summer as I hope will
never visit the earth again. Day after day
the sun rose into a cloudless sky and set in a
sea of brass. No soft white cloud cheered the
parched earth with promise of rain. No dew
fell at eventide and no rain fell for weeks and
months. The old mill pond in the valley
shrank to a mere pool, and the river that fed
it nearly went dry.

" Springs that had not failed in the mem-
ory of man dried up, grass and shrubs were
burned to a crisp, and dust and a terrible
thirst was over all the land. The beasts of
the field and the fowls of the air seemed ill at
ease. Cattle roamed restlessly to and fro,
lowing and impatient. The great bald eagle
that had made its nest in my top for several
years circled about the mountain top scream-
ing when there was nothing to enrage it.

50 Trails to Woods and Waters

Birds twittered uneasily and uttered their
cries of alarm when there was seemingly noth-
ing to alarm them. Some of the wild crea-
tures even seemed to go mad because of the
great thirst that had fallen upon the earth,
and went snapping and snarling at their fel-
lows. All living things seemed out of joint
and well they might.

" One evening just at dusk there appeared
a dull red glow that grew rapidly in intensity
as the night wore on. Later on in the night it
filled the sky with a cloud that obscured the
stars and made the moon look like a sickly
streak of yellow light.

" The next morning the sun rose in a blood
red sky, and there was great activity among
the creeping, crawling men down in the valley.
Teams were set to work ploughing broad fur-
rows about the home lots and preparing in
other ways to keep their homes from the red
demon that now mastered the eastern horizon.

" Great clouds of smoke rolled heaven-
ward, obscuring the sun and casting a strange
unearthly light over all.

A Tale from the Skidway 5 1

" All things that could, fled before the on-
coming demon. The buck and the doe gal-
loped by on the wings of the wind.

" The nimble red fox, belly to earth, fol-
lowed close behind them. In their wake ran
a score of cottontails and gray rabbits, while
the skunk and the woodchuck lumbered
clumsily after them. Even the turtle brought
up the rear, running a desperate race to the
old mill pond.

" Great flocks of birds, squawking and call-
ing whirred by. All were fleeing to a place
of safety.

" But not so the sentinel pine. My roots
were planted deep in the soil of the hillside,
and hooked tightly about the solid rocks. I
was anchored and immovable, like the eternal
hills. No matter how hot the air grew, or
how dense with smoke, I must stay at my
post like a good soldier and stand or fall as
fate willed it.

" On came the red monster, licking up the
grass and the ferns, the underbrush and the
tall trees of the forest, with ten thousand red

52 Trails to Woods and Waters

tongues. Its roar was like the roar of the
cyclone, and there were undertones and over-
tones, hissing and snapping, sputtering and
cracking.

" The earth was so parched that the flames
ran in the grass almost as fast as the deer and
the foxes, while the main fire leaped from
treetop to treetop over gaps of fifty feet.

" Whenever it came to a tall pine that was
dry as tinder it leaped up as though it had
caught in a powder mill and the flames shot
heavenward two or three hundred feet. One
by one I saw my tall neighbors wrapped in
flames and I knew that my fate was sealed.

" Despair clutched me and I shivered like
a human thing at the thought of what a gigan-
tic funeral torch I would make. Then a
rumble of distant thunder and a strong puff
of west wind sent a thrill of hope through me.
The rumble was followed by another and yet
another, and then a peal of thunder woke the
hillside. On came the flames vying with the
thunder that now rolled incessantly. The
flames in the underbrush reached my trunk

A Tale from the Skidway 53

and began burning swiftly up. There was
sixty good feet to climb, before my branches
were reached, but I knew if once my top was
kindled nothing could save me. Deeply the
flames burned into my side, making a scar
that I still carry, while the thunders rolled
and the skies piled up angry clouds.

" The mighty sheets of flame that leaped
from treetop to treetop, were only a furlong
away when the flood gates of heaven were
opened and I was saved from a terrible
doom.

" Then how the rain fell, drenching the
parched earth with great sheets of water that
the dust drank up almost before it touched
the earth. In five minutes the flames that had
scorched my side for fifteen or twenty feet
were out, and torrents of water were running
in all the little gullies and every blade of grass
was rejoicing in a language all its own.

" Baffled and subdued the flames hissed and
sputtered, roared and cracked, but their fury
was checked and they finally died out, leaving
a long black waste behind them.

54 Trails to Woods and Waters

" This was the last great tragic event in my
life, that is, until I was laid low, just as my
sire had been. For fifty years more after the
great forest fire, I lived the quiet, peaceful
life of a sentinel pine, spreading my plumes
to heaven and adorning the brow of the moun-
tain. Grand and majestic, a thing of wonder
and beauty, a living, breathing spire of deep
blue green, a landmark for the weary traveler
for miles around.

" One crisp December morning when I was
something over two hundred and fifty years
old, two men came and stood by me and
talked and their conversation concerned me.

" One was the grave old gentleman upon
whose land I stood and who owned me, the
other was a lumber merchant.

" * It's a noble old tree/ said my owner,
passing his hand caressingly over my bark.
' It has stood here as the sentinel pine, looking
just as it does now, ever since I can remember.
In fact, when I was a boy it looked taller
than it does now, but I suppose that was just
my boyish fancy. It must be one hundred

A Tale from the Skidway 55

and twenty-five feet tall, and sixty feet up to
the first limb.

" ' My great-grandfather said he could re-
member when it was much smaller, and his
great-grandfather remembered when it was
not much taller than a man. It seems like
sacrilege to sell such a tree/

" ' Pooh,' said the lumber merchant. ' If it
stays here it will some day fall to earth of
old age and then it will do no one any good.
What is your price for the tree? '

" ' One hundred and fifty dollars,' said my
owner, ' and I would not sell it at that price
if I didn't need the money. This pine is the
most majestic and beautiful thing on the farm
and I feel as though I was selling my own
great-great-grandfather.'

" The lumber merchant looked up at my
straight symmetrical bowl and measured me
with his eye. To his matter-of-fact vision I
was just so many thousand feet of sawed
lumber. It was plain to see that I pleased
him, for he rubbed his hands together in a
satisfied way and said, * I'll take it.'

56 Trails to Woods and Waters

" The next morning two wood-choppers
came with axes and saws and I said good-bye
to the forest and my native mountain, for my
hour had come.

" Each time the bright blade of the axe
sank into my flesh, there was a nipping, biting
pain. Soon I felt a numbness creeping up
the side upon which they were cutting. This
numbness which was like a strange sleep crept
to my first limbs, and then to my very tip-top
plume.

" When they had cut in part way, in one
side, they began on the other and soon that side
too was numb. Gradually, like one who is
heavy with sleep, the numbness enfolded me,
then the white snow-capped hills and valleys
faded from my sight. The sound of the wind
died in the treetops and I began to waver,
like an old man upon his staff.

" Then a few more keen axe strokes severed
my heart, and with a rush and a roar that
shook the mountain side, I fell and was no
longer a tree, but several thousand feet of
unsawed timber."

A Tale from the Skid way 57

" What a pity that you are dead," said the
boy sympathetically.

" I am not exactly dead," said the old butt-
log, in its deep rich voice, " but I am wonder-
fully changed. Nothing is quite dead until it
disintegrates, and falls to dust.

" I still have great possibilities ahead. I
am too valuable for men to allow me to pass
out of existence like a useless thing.

" Who can say just what my future life
will be? I am quite curious about it myself.
True, yonder howling saw will work havoc
with me as a butt-log, but I shall be some-
thing else when I am sawed.

" Perhaps I shall travel. Maybe I shall
be the finishing stuff of a great ocean liner.
Then will I ride the billowing deep and
my fiber will sing the ancient song of
the sea, where the wind howls in the rig-
ging just as it does in the treetops of the
forest.

" Perhaps as the floor stuff of a parlor car
I shall travel from seaboard to seaboard, vi-
brating and thrilling to the song of thunder-

58 Trails to Woods and Waters

ing car wheels and listening all day to the
click of steel rails.

" Maybe in the nursery little feet shall
patter over me and baby tongues shall prattle
above me.

" Or, if a higher destiny should happen to
be mine, I might be the sounding board in a
piano, that the master musician shall play.
Then again would I vibrate with the joy of
spring and the flush of summer. Or still
better, the violin maker may find a piece of
wood hundreds of years hence, that was once
taken from my fiber. He may fashion a
wonderful instrument from it. Then indeed
would I again hear the wind in the pine
needles and the melancholy dirge of autumn.

" So you see I am not dead, but changed
when I am sawed up into boards."

"We want that log, sonny," said the
sawyer, who had trundled out the car so
quietly that the dreamer on the log had not
heard him.

The boy scrambled down from his perch
and watched the men roll the great log on to

A Tale from the Skid way 59

the car and trundle it into the mill. When
it had been put into place, he took his position
on the car beside the log and rode back and
forth while the old log was being sawed.

When the saw was not in motion it was a
great silver disk, ragged as hooked and gleam-
ing teeth could make it, but when it was in
motion it was a misty blurr round as a cart-
wheel and without a sign of a tooth upon it.

When the carriage moved forward and it
struck the butt-log of the ancient pine, it
howled in demoniacal glee and whenever it
struck a knot it fairly shrieked.

One by one the white fresh boards were
sawed from the great log, until one was
reached that arrested the attention of the men
at the saw.

In the middle of this board was a panel
where the wood was worn away and polished
as white as bone and quite as hard.

"Look at that, Jim," said the sawyer to
his helper. " Pretty bad scar, ain't it? What
you guess did it? "

" Fire," said the small boy on the carriage,

60 Trails to Woods and Waters

who was watching eyery board taken from the
old log.

" That is right," said the sawyer, " it was
a forest fire. Must have happened more than
fifty years ago, but how did the kid know? "

The boy blushed and looked ashamed, but
said nothing and the sawing went on.

When the mammoth log had been sawed
and placed upon another car to be run into
the yard and stacked, the sawyer said, " Six-
teen hundred feet in one butt-log. Well, that
breaks the record! "

" Gracious, sonny," he exclaimed, when he
had finished figuring, " seems to me you'll be
late to school. Bell must have rung half an
hour ago."

" That's so," said the boy, catching up his
dinner pail and starting down the gangplank
on a run. " I was so interested in the old
log I forgot," but all the rest of the way to
school he marvelled at the beauty and mystery
of the old pine's story and was deeply grate-
ful that he had eyes to see and a heart to
understand these things.

CHAPTER II
THE STORY OF WILLOW BROOK

CHAPTER II

The Story of Willow Brook

THE boy with a dinner pail sat on the end
of a little rustic bridge, dangling his bare feet
over the cool water and listening to the pleas-
ant murmur of the stream.

Above, and about him was a canopy of
willow and alder bushes, and beneath was a
deep trout-haunted pool. An occasional sun-
beam pierced the green coverlet of alder and
willow and fell upon the rippling, dimpling
water. Where it slanted down through the
green it was a pencil of gold, but where it
touched the water it broke into many rainbow
hues.

A dragon fly with jewelled eyes and iri-
descent wings hummed viciously through,
under the bridge, causing the boy to draw up

64 Trails to Woods and Waters

his feet quickly. He had a horror of dragon
flies, because he shared with other small boys
that queer superstition, about the dragon fly
sewing up the ears of those who angered him.
The boy was of course quite sure the bright
colored insect did not really possess that
power, but there was just enough mystery
about the legend to make it awesome.

A wood thrush perched in the alders al-
most within hand's reach, and poured forth
a wonderful song. Further down the stream
a catbird mimicked the song exactly and then
squawled derisively.

As the boy sat upon the bridge leaning
against the post at one end, his cap on the
planks beside him, with the sweet smell of
fern and flag and pungent willow in his nos-
trils, the spirit of the waters touched his ears
with a magic reed, and he heard new tones
in the song of the stream and at last under-
stood its gurgling and prattling as he had
never done before.

At first he understood only a part of what
the rivulet was saying, but finally his heart

The Story of Willow Brook 65

was opened and the language of the waters
was made plain.

"I am willow brook," the little stream be-
gan, " and I am older than you can possibly
imagine. Many a stream goes dry and is lost
because the timber is cut off near its source,
or the land is drained, but very few new
streams are formed. So the streams are older
than anything made by man, older than the
oldest trees that have stood for centuries, and
almost as old as the wrinkled hills.

" If you would get some idea of how old
I am just follow me back by a score of
bridges, and as many meadows, by half a
dozen mill ponds and as many water wheels,
through deep forests and over jagged cliffs,
to the place of my beginning, which is far up
on the mountain side.

" There you will find a seam in the solid
rock from which gush the living waters. A
foot or two below is a basin holding several
gallons of water.

" At the time when some upheaval, or per-
haps it was the frost, broke the rock open,

66 Trails to Woods and Waters

and I gushed forth, there was no basin to
hold my pure stream. I made the basin with
my own gentle lapping. If you were to pour
water upon a rock for your entire lifetime
you probably could not see that you had worn
away the rock; but I with my constant drip-
ping have made this deep broad basin. I do
not measure time in years and so do not know
how long ago the rock opened and I began
work upon the basin,, but many times the
forest about me has fallen beneath the tooth
of time while I worked away at my task.
Long, long before the white man ever set foot
upon this continent the red man used to come
to my basin to drink.

" In those days I was called the * fount of
healing.' There were many substances in the
rock from which I sprung that had medicinal
qualities, such as sulphur and iron, which
purify and renew the blood. Some of these
qualities I have lost, as the iron and the sul-
phur are nearly all washed from the rock, but
I am still the living water full of sweet, heal-
ing qualities.

The Story of Willow Brook 67

" In those old days when the ancient forest
was unbroken, and primeval wilderness and
grandeur was about me, the doe led her little
dapple fawn to the bank and drank of me.
The woodcock and the jacksnipe reared their
young upon my bank, and bored for worms
in the loam that I cast up. The wood duck
led forth her fledglings to my bosom, and was
not afraid.

" Often the red man came to my deep pools
for fish and I gave him plenty, for then the
streams swarmed with fish. In those sweet
old days I was wild and free, for I had not
been dammed and harnessed to do the work
of men.

" How well I remember the first dam that
checked my course and how I have worked
ever since at that mill. One day the new,
pale faced man who was a stranger in the
great woods came to my banks and began
felling trees at the lower end of a little valley
and almost before I had guessed their design
they had entirely checked my course. How
angry I was to be stopped in this way. I

68 Trails to Woods and Waters

knew that many pools and waterfalls below
would dry up if I tarried, but work away as
I would, I could find no escape through this
wall that men had placed in my way.

" At first I sought to go under the dam, or
through some of the many small cracks that
had been left in the structure. But there was
no passage under the strong dam, and the
holes were soon filled with wash from the
stream and I was left fretting in confine-
ment.

" Then I sought to go round the ends of
the dam, but man had builded it long and
strong and as it is one of the laws of my being
that I cannot flow uphill, I soon found that I
could not go round, so I waited, making a
broad deep pool, abiding my time. If I was
not strong enough to cope with this artifice
now I might be later on. But the surface of
the pond near the dam was covered with froth
for I foamed and fretted at being held.

" I had never before been checked so effect-
ively. Once the beaver had dammed my
course, but had finally concluded that my

The Story of Willow Brook 69

current was too swift and had sought another
stream.

" Finally after about u week, I had filled
the dam full to the top and I knew that my
liberty was near ^t har/d. So one morning
without as much as saying, by your leave, I
tumbled over the dam with a great roar, and
went laughing on my way.

" How glad the pools and the meadows
below were to see me. They had thought I
had lost my way, and were nearly dried up
with grief. The meadows had lost their
greenness and freshness, and many of the
shallow pools wer£ nearly dry. The fish had
fared hard, and some of my choice clumps of
lily-pads were dead. But everything took on
a new beauty when I appeared and this
helped me to realize how important I was
after all. But not all of my water escaped
over the top of the dam, for man had fash-
ioned a long dark tunnel underground and
part of my flow went through that.

" At the end of this tunnel was a queer
round box, into which I rushed, making it go

70 Trails to Woods and Waters

round and round, but I finally escaped, all
white and foaming with anger.

" Sometimes the passage leading to the
tunnel was shut, but much of the time it was
open.

" When I rushed into this queer box and
sent it spinning round and round, it turned
other round things, and there was a great
humming and roaring in the house above.

" Finally I understood what an important
work I was doing in this mill, which ground
the grist for many miles around, then I was
glad that I could help. Some days I was
obliged to turn the wheels all day long, but it
made many people glad.

" This was the first of a dozen dams that
were built upon my course and finally I was
made to do many kinds of work. I not only
ground corn and wheat, but sawed logs and
turned the loom that made cloth to keep men
and women warm. Mine has been a useful
life, ever since the rock was cleft and I
spouted forth into the light of day.

" After the white man came, the red man.

The Story of Willow Brook 7 1

the deer and the great moose soon ceased to
frequent my banks.

" Also the geese and ducks became less nu-
merous. But I still possess much that is
interesting to one who loves the sound of run-
ning water, and the fragrance of sweet flag
and water lilies.

" Every autumn the speckled trout swims
far up my winding way to my many branches,
to spawn. The eggs are covered up and left
to hatch, when the spring sun shall warm the
water sufficiently.

" In the springtime I am the nursery of
many kinds of spawn. The trout and the red
fin, the dace and the bullhead, the great
green bullfrog and the lizard, and many
small crustaceans are all cradled in my cur-
rent.

" Each mossy stone, and each sandy shal-
low is a hatchery. Then all my sparkling
current teems with life.

"While the rich larvae, shining like gold,
feed all lower forms of life.

" In the springtime the cowslip unfolds her

72 Trails to Woods and Waters

chalice of gold above, me and the sweet flag
and the cattail again put on their green.
Then water grasses and willows blossom, and
my banks are fragrant and sweet with the
glad new life.

" Late in June the water lily unfolds and
makes fragrant my deep pools. Then the
wood duck, the sandpiper, the woodcock and
the bittern lead forth their young, and my
banks are a nursery for the fowls of the air.

" Little children, too, love to sport in my
shallows, and catch shiners and polly-wogs.
Men and boys seek me and dangle their lines
in my depths, angling for my speckled trout,
and the whole countryside for many miles
around is glad because they know Willow
Brook.

" Many a great lesson of life I teach, if men
would only heed my teachings.

" I teach the lesson of purity and cleanli-
ness as no other thing in nature does. To-
day you may fill me with unclean things, but
to-morrow I will run as sweet and pure as
ever. No matter how bright the stars are

The Story of Willow Brook 73

they can always find their reflection in my
bosom. I teach the lesson of industry, for I
am never idle. I turn the mill that feeds the
world. I water the meadow, enrich the bar-
ren places of earth. I lave and feed the roots
of plants and trees and make my world fresh
and glad.

" I never go backward as men often do,
but my motto is always onward, towards
deeper and broader things. I am always
stronger to-day than I was yesterday.

" I am not afraid of being lost or forgot-
ten, even though I mingle with larger streams
and am seemingly lost. My water drops are
still there doing their little part. Even
though I at last mingle with the great ocean,
with the current of a thousand streams, yet
will I return to the cloud, and sing through
the meadow again. Again will the cowslip
and the lily open their hearts at my touch and
the meadow be glad at my coming.

" I cannot linger for longer even under this
rustic old bridge, where the willow and the
alder greet me and all whisper for me to stay,

74 Trails to Woods and Waters

1 ' But out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever/ "

CHAPTER III
A LITTLE DAPPLE FOOL

CHAPTER III

A Little Dapple Fool

THE misty morn hung low on the eastern
hilltops and the earth waited expectantly for
the dawn of day. The first evidence of its
coming had been a long low fleecy cloud that
hung like a curtain over the hilltops. At first
the cloud had been cold like a shroud with not
even a suggestion of warmth, but gradually
tints of pink and saffron had crept into its
centre and the whole had been transfused
with a wonderful glow.

Now it vibrated and trembled in the bal-
ance, half vapor and half light, like a nicely
adjusted scale which would turn in either
direction at the slightest touch.

Suddenly, as though by magic, the veil
parted, the pink and saffron grew and deep-
ened in intensity and the round smiling face

78 Trails to Woods and Waters

of the sun peeped through the gossamer veil
and all the birds in the treetops set up a great
chirping and twittering; the squirrels chat-
tered, and all the four-footed creatures be-
came vocal, each after its kind.

This was the morning greeting of the
furred and feathered folks to the warm sun
whose coming cheered and gladdened them.

An hour before a dainty doe had gone
down into the valley, stepping lightly and
daintily, as does her kind, in search of her
breakfast.

Her little dappled fawn, whom she had
left hidden in the top of a fallen tree, was a
great strain upon her and the mother was as
ravenous as a wolf.

But there was plenty of good feed in the
valley and as the deer were protected by law,
there was little danger in her going. So fear-
less had the deer become that her mate, the
proud, heavy antlered buck, who had lived in
and about the mountain for several years, fre-
quently grazed in the neighboring pastures
with the cattle.

A Little Dapple Fool 79

The little dapple fawn was asleep when his
mother had left, but the lesson necessary to
his safety had been faithfully taught him
and the instinct of his ancestors was in his
veins.

He was concealed in the very thickest part
of the treetop and his mother had to make a
great jump to reach him without trampling
down the boughs and thus betray their where-
abouts.

Presently he saw bright pencils of light
streaming through his treetop and the birds
began singing in the woods for very joy.
Then he knew that it was daylight and that
his mother would soon be back.

With the coming of the sunbeams the scent
of the pine needles was quickened into life,
and a dozen wonderful fragrances stirred into
being upon the puffs of the fresh morning
breeze. All nature seemed new and vital, re-
vived and quickened by the sparkling dew-
drops that trembled on the petals of each wild
flower and which gemmed even the weeds as
well.

80 Trails to Woods and Waters

There was a chink between the foliage of
the fallen treetop through which the fawn
amused himself by staring with mild, wide-
open eyes. Now, in the absence of his
mother, he fell to watching the life about him
through his small window in the green
plumes of the fallen tree.

Presently, something caught his eye that
arrested his attention and held it with a fear-
ful fascination that he could not shake off.
Though it terrified him for some reason to
look at what he saw, yet the sight held him,
and he could not even shut his eyes.

A few rods down the mountain side a great,
gray cat was creeping stealthily through the
woods, stopping every now and then, with
one paw upraised, to listen and to test the
wind.

This cat, like the doe down in the valley,
was a wild mother, and the pangs of hunger
gnawed at her vitals. Three blind kittens in
a hollow fallen basswood were waiting for
her, and it needed all her natural cunning to
feed herself and her kittens.

A Little Dapple Fool 81

The wind was blowing the scent of the hid-
den fawn in the treetop straight away from
her, but it blew the strong body scent of the
cat full in the fawn's widely extended nos-
trils. He had never smelled anything like it
before and some wild instinct told him that it
was a fearful scent, fraught with danger.

A strong impulse was on him to bell wildly
for his mother, whom he felt sure would come
running and drive away this fearful prowler.
But silence had been one of the lessons his
wild mother had enjoined, so he stifled his
terror and lay with tense, quivering muscles,
while the great cat drew nearer and nearer.

At last, the hunting wildcat crept to within
ten paces of the treetop and stood watching
and listening, testing the wind, with all her
nerves intent upon discovering game. She
had not even scented the fawn as the wind,
which was strong, blew directly away from
her, but she had noticed deer signs and knew
that a doe had been that way this morning.

The fawn staring wide-eyed through his
chink in the foliage lay as still as death, but

82 Trails to Woods and Waters

his eyes were fastened intently upon the in-
truder.

The great cat looked doubtfully this way
and that but nothing seemed stirring in this
quarter. She sat down on her stub of a tail
to consider which thicket to hunt next. The
heaviness of her night's sleep had not been en-
tirely thrown off for she had just come from
her lair, so she opened her great mouth, show-
ing her ferocious visage at its fiercest, and
yawned.

To the little watcher peeping through his
window in the treetop, this was the last straw.
It filled him with uncontrollable terror.
With a pitiful bell of fear, he bounded from
the treetop and ran wildly down the mountain
side, fear lending wings to his hoofs.

Probably a more astonished wildcat never
stood on the mountain side than the old hunt-
ress. But her flash of astonishment was in-
stantly swept away by her primitive instinct
of the hunt.

The fleeing fawn had not taken three
jumps when she was after him, springing

THE FAWN HAD NOT TAKEN THREE JUMPS WHEN
SHE WAS AFTER HIM

A Little Dapple Fool 83

twice to his once, and overhauling him
rapidly.

Half a dozen rods further down the hill-
side, in the peaceful aisles of the tranquil
woods, where the birds sang and the dew
sparkled on the grass, the helpless dappled
creature was borne to earth.

With a mighty bound the wildcat landed
fairly upon his back and he went down, al-
most without a struggle, and the cat's power-
ful jaws soon silenced his pitiful bleating.

A few minutes later she was dragging the
lifeless carcass further down the hillside that
she might hide it in a deep thicket, where the
prowling fox, and the crow, and owls, should
not find it.

A trail of broken-down ferns and weeds
marked their going, and bloodspots sparkled
among the dewdrops.

The little fawn had paid the penalty for
disobedience, the price that is always exacted
in the wild.

Half an hour later when the wild mother
returned, something told her from afar that

84 Trails to Woods and Waters

all was not well with jher little one. Was it
mother love that made her so keen to see dan-
ger for her offspring? She came running half
fearfully to the treetop and jumped into the
fawn's hiding-place as usual, but it was
empty.

With a bell of wounded mother love, she
sprang out again, and ran frantically hither
and thither, her terror and frenzy growing
each minute.

Into every thicket she peered wild-eyed
and helpless.

The great cat heard her running frantically
by her lair as she lay licking her chops and
purring contentedly over her blind kittens.
Her belly was full, her milk would flow freely
now and there would be no more hunger in
the cat family for several days.

CHAPTER IV
THE FAMILY OF BOB-WHITE

CHAPTER IV '

The Family of Bob-White

BLITHE, cheerful little Bob- White sat on
the top of a barpost whistling his merry call,
" bob-white, bob, bob-bob-white, bob-white,
bob, bob-white."

Bob- White was very well satisfied with the
whole world that spring morning, and with
his own lot in particular, for something told
him in the plainest kind of language that
spring had come. In fact all the birds that
he had seen this morning had been talking
about it, and Bob-White knew just enough
of their language to understand. What else
did blue bird mean by his sweet " cheerily,
cheerily," and Cock Robin, by his lusty
'* cheerup, cheerup." Still more convincing
than either of these, was a great noisy flock
of wild geese that swung rapidly across the

88 Trails to Woods and Waters

spring sky, flinging, afar to the brown earth
their strong clear water slogan of " honk,
honk, honk."

Bob-White, like the rest of the quail in the
vicinity, had just passed through a very se-
vere winter, so was it any wonder that he
whistled his merriest tune this balmy morn-
ing?

Each time when he stopped whistling he
hopped down on the top bar of the gateway
and strutted back and forth like a veritable
turkey cock. First, he would extend one
wing to its full sweep, then the other, and
finally spreading both wings and his comical
short tail he would strut up and down saying
in his every motion, " now if you want to see
a fine bird just look at me."

He was not a showy bird, although his suit
was neat and quite jaunty. His back and
shoulders were a combination of brown and
gray, while his undersides were lighter. The
feathers on the top of his head were rather
inclined to stand up like a pompadour, and
under his throat was a white necktie. The

The Family of Bob-White 89

most that could be said for such a dress was,
that it was not conspicuous, and so was not
calculated to attract the eyes of any of Bob-
White's enemies, such as hawks, owls, or men.

But Bob- White was whistling for some-
thing else beside good spirits this morning.
He was whistling for a wife.

Presently from down across the fields as
though in answer to his calling came a clear,
'' white, white, white," or if you had been in
a more romantic frame of mind you might
have thought that the clear low whistling said,
" here, here, here."

Bob-White heard it, and was pleased with
the effect of his own musical voice, so he re-
doubled his calls of " bob-white, bob-white,"
and listened at regular intervals for the mu-
sical "white, white, white," that came in return.

When this calling and answering had gone
on for some time Bob- White flew away to in-
vestigate, and his wings made such a whirring
and struck so fast that this fact alone pro-
claimed him a member of the partridge fam-
ily. He is the smallest of all the partridges,

90 Trails to Woods and Waters

and is known in parts -of the south as the Vir-
ginia partridge.

While Bob- White is making love to a shy
lady quail down in the thicket, let us briefly
consider his short life up to this morning,
that you may know why he was so glad spring
had come, and why the answering call from
the thicket had been so sweet to his ears.

The latter part of May, the previous
spring, Bob-White had been merely one of
fifteen eggs lying cunningly concealed in a
nest made on the ground under a brush fence.

About the middle of June all of these fif-
teen eggs had begun to manifest signs of life,
and in about fifteen minutes after the first tiny
bill appeared, the whole brood was hatched.

They were no featherless, hairless, gawky
fledglings, but bright, alert chicks fairly well
clad, and as smart as crickets.

In a few hours they were following their
mother about picking up their living just as
though they had done nothing else for years.

But an evil fate had pursued the brood
from the very day of hatching. When they

The Family of Bob-White 91

were a week old a weasel happened upon
them in the night, and before their vigilant
little mother had been able to scatter and hide
them, he sucked the blood of three, and the
family was reduced to an even dozen.

A grub or louse had claimed two more
within another week, and the family was
down to ten. The next thief to come among
them was the sparrow-hawk, who took one in
each claw at a single swoop, leaving but eight;
these eight, however, lived until the hunting
season opened in the autumn, when four of
them went into a game bag before they even
thought of scattering and thus diminishing
their peril.

After that ominous day they never knew
just when the deafening banging would be-
gin, and they were not left in peace for many
days at a time.

When the season finally closed, there were
two chicks and one of the old birds left. Only
three out of seventeen, the original family.

In addition to such bad luck as this the
following winter had been exceptionally hard.

92 Trails to Woods and Waters

The scattered grain, and the weed-seeds had
been covered by the first snow-storm, and they
did not appear again until the warm spring
rains uncovered the brown earth, so the quail
had to depend entirely upon the winter ber-
ries and buds for sustenance.

The bright red berries of the sumac, the
bitter-sweet, and the purple berries of the
Virginia creeper, had stood them in good
stead. Also juniper and poison ivy berries
had furnished them many a meal.

When these were all gone they went into
the deep woods and scratched about fallen
logs for partridge berries or occasionally dis-
covered a wind-swept knoll where checker-
berries could be found.

With such scant food as this, and with seed
obtained from an occasional tall weed, that
stuck its friendly head above the snow they
had managed to live until February, but
finally even this supply gave out, and they
resorted to their last hope, and visited a farm-
yard in the vicinity.

Each day they went to the barnyard, and

The Family of Bob- White 93

scratched in the dung-heap for particles of
grain. It was while feeding in this manner
that the house-cat took one, and the quail fam-
ily was reduced to a pair. But they still
came to the farmyard, as they could do noth-
ing else.

Bob- White and his sister clung very closely
to one another now they were all that was left
of the large quail family, but one night while
they were sleeping side by side in a tangle of
bitter-sweet and fir tree, a great owl reached
in his strong talons and took one, and Bob-
White was left alone in the great world.

But this had happened only two or three
weeks before the time when our story begins,
and Bob-White had found food in plenty
shortly after the owl had deprived him of his
companion.

At first, Bob- White could not locate the
shy little lady quail who had been calling to
him from the thicket; but he finally discov-
ered her picking away for dear life at weed-
seed, just as though breakfast was much more
to her taste than love making.

94 Trails to Woods and Waters

For a long time she would take no notice of
him but he strutted up and down so per-
sistently that she finally looked up. Even
then, her manner plainly said, " Why, where
in the world did you come from; I did not
suppose there was a bob-white anywhere in
this region?" Little by little, Bob-White
gained her goodwill until at last she would let
him help her scratch for weed-seeds. They
spent a very pleasant forenoon together and
the thing was as good as settled.

The following morning, Bob- White was
again perched on his barpost whistling his
cheery call-note, but when the answer came
up clear from the thicket, " white, white,
white," and he flew down to meet his in-
tended, sad to relate, another bob-white was
helping her hunt for weed-seed.

Then her own particular Bob- White flew
at his rival and a cock fight began which
would have been most comical had not the
combatants been so deadly in earnest. They
lowered their heads and came at each other in
true game-cock style, striking with beak and

The Family of Bob White 95

wing and sometimes even buffeting one an-
other over.

But our own Bob- White was fighting for
his rights, for the admiration and affection of
his mate and the nest they intended to build,
while the other was merely an intruder; so,
having right on his side, he soon punished his
rival severely and he flew away discomfited.

When the field was clear and Bob-White
had been left conqueror, he went up to his
fickle wife and gave her a savage peck on the
head as much as to say, " You faithless hussy,
if it had not been for you, I should not have
had all this trouble."

Only once more did a rival dare to make
love to Mrs. Bob- White, and then the in-
truder was driven away as before and the wife
punished for her faithlessness.

This honeymoon lasted for about ten days
and then Mr. and Mrs. Bob-White selected a
place for their nest. It was under the edge
of an old fallen log, well screened from view
and sheltered from the rain. Each day for
about two weeks Mrs. Bob- White deposited

96 Trails to Woods and Waters

an egg in the nest, until the number was six-
teen, then began her arduous task of incuba-
tion.

Two or three times during that long three
weeks Mr. Bob-White took his turn upon the
eggs for half an hour while his wife went for
a dust bath.

There are ornithologists who accuse Bob-
White of being a bigamist, but I do not be-
lieve that he ever woos the second wife until
after the first chicks have hatched, and that
might be called a lawful second marriage. I
do not doubt, however, but that he would flirt
with a coquettish lady quail even while his
own faithful wife was sitting on the eggs if
chance offered.

About the twentieth of June Mrs. Bob-
White appeared, closely followed by fourteen
quail chicks. She was clucking and bristling
like the good little mother partridge that she
is, and each of the tiny chicks was spry as a
cricket. It had not been necessary for the
old birds to carry food to these nestlings.
After the first tiny little creature had picked

The Family of Bob-White 97

his way through the shell, his lusty peep had
set all the others to work and in half an hour
the whole brood had arrived. Then, when
they had dried and had a little time in which
to gain strength, they were ready for the
world.

Forth they all came, the mother clucking
and bristling and the chicks scampering this
way and that, pecking at almost invisible
plant-lice and bugs and feeding themselves
within the same hour that they came from the
nest.

For two or three nights Mrs. Bob- White
led them back to the old nest, but after that
it was given up and they never returned to it.

One night when they were about a week
old Mrs. Bob- White led them to sleep in a
little hollow under an overhanging rock.
During the night there was a terrible down-
pour of rain and the hollow filled rapidly.
Before the young mother could conduct her
chicks to higher and drier ground, three were
drowned in the puddle.

After this, there were no fatalities in the

98 Trails to Woods and Waters

quail family for nearly two months. For the
first two weeks Bob- White hovered about his
family trying to protect them and giving his
wife much good advice about bringing up
children; but she finally told him that she
could get along quite well without him, and
he took her at her word.

The August moon hung large and lumi-
nous above the eastern hills. There was the
smell of ripening fruit and maize on the sum-
mer night air and the cricket and the katy-did
were singing in the grass. Sweet corn was
already in the milk, but the field corn was not
yet ripe enough for the palate of the fastidi-
ous raccoon.

Down from the deep woods came Mr. Rac-
coon shuffling and shambling like the real
little bear that he is. About his eyes were
two black circles looking like spectacles and
around the tip of his nose was a white ring.
His tail also was ringed. There is not an-
other sucH suit as his in the entire wilderness
east of the Rocky Mountains. Out of the
woods he came and across the pasture he shuf-

The Family of Bob- White 99

fled, eager, alert, and watchful, often stop-
ping to test the air and poke his inquisitive
nose under a log or flat stone.

Soon a fresh puff of night wind brought
him a most exciting scent. He knew it quite
well. It was that of a bevy of quail in hiding.
The old raccoon knew just how they stood in
that circular bunch with their tails all to-
gether and their heads looking outward, that
they might face in every direction.

He flattened himself to the ground and
crept forward on his belly almost as still as a
cat. He was no longer the clumsy little bear
but the cautious hunter. Once he heard the
bevy stirring uneasily in their sleep as though
they had knowledge of coming danger. Then
he lay very still and waited until the mother
bird's " erects " and the soft peeps of the
chickens had ceased. He now crept forward
again. Nearer and nearer he drew, going
more cautiously with each succeeding step,
until at last he was within springing distance.
He then flattened himself out on the ground,
intensified all his muscles until they were like

I oo Trails to Woods and Waters

steel and with a sudden motion sprang full in
the midst of the sleeping bevy.

Click, click, click, went his jaws, snapping
like lightning in every direction.

There was the sudden whirr of many wings
and a chorus of squeaks, peeps, and squawks
from a dozen birds and in three seconds' time
the bevy were gone with the exception of two
wounded birds who fluttered feebly in the
grass. But a bite apiece from Mr. Raccoon
soon stopped their fluttering. Then the
hunter lay down where, a few minutes before,
the quail family had slept and made his sup-
per of quail, without toast.

August and September came and went and
the quail family grew plump upon grain and
weed-seed but the loss of grain to the farmer
was more than offset by the weed-seed they
destroyed.*

October with its corn in the shock and
golden pumpkins and harvested grain and
fruit was with us when another hunter came

*It has been estimated by the agricultural department of
the United States that the quail in Maryland and Virginia
annually destroy two hundred and fifty tons of weed-seed.

The Family of Bob-White i o i

down from the great wood in quest of warm
blood. This hunter did not shuffle as the old
raccoon had done, but his gait was a steady
trot. When the night wind stirred, bearing
the delicious fragrance of witch-hazel, one
might have noticed a musky, pungent odor
from the night prowler. It was Red-Fox,
the wise and the witty, and a much more suc-
cessful hunter than the old raccoon.

He, too, got a scent of quail down in the
pasture and followed it eagerly. His step
was swift and sure and his nose was keen.
Swiftly like a dark shadow he advanced until
he located the sleeping quail under an old
brush fence. Then he crept forward foot by
foot until he was almost upon them, when
with a sudden spring he darted into their
midst.

Again, there was the sudden whirr of many
wings and cries of fear and pain, mingled
with the rapid click, click, of the fox's jaws.
When the bevy was gone and Mr. Fox nosed
about under the fence he found He also had
bagged a pair of quail.

102 Trails to Woods and Waters

No more misfortunes befell the quail fam-
ily until the first day of the open season.
Then a party of sportsmen with dogs and
guns drove them from cover to cover, while
the guns cracked merrily. It was a cold, raw
day of scudding clouds and biting winds that
plainly told of coming winter. This, added
to the incessant roar of firearms, made that
day like the crack of doom to the family of
Bob-White.

Towards night, a biting sleet and rain-
storm set in and the hunting ceased, but the
quail family had been scattered in every di-
rection and their friends at the farmhouse
wondered if any had survived, so the old man
and small boy went out into the storm to look
for the quail. The old man went ahead with
a long, swinging stride while the small boy
trotted after him.

How cheerless was the sound of the hail
rattling upon the dead leaves and grass, and
the moaning of the winds in the treetops ! All
the joy and gladness seemed to have departed
from the naked, forsaken earth.

HE CREPT FORWARD FOOT BY FOOT UNTIL HE
WAS ALMOST UPON HIM

The Family of Bob-White 103

These two had followed the fortunes of the
quail family from the very first. They had
discovered the nest under the old log and had
visited it several times during incubation.
They had fished the three water soaked chicks
out of the puddle after the rain-storm where
the folly of their mother had been only too
apparent.

They had also happened upon the remains
of the old raccoon's supper, scattered about
near that circle of footprints. The depreda-
tions of Red Fox they had likewise discovered
while repairing the brush fence. They had
also seen the quail many times in neighboring
grain fields and had heard their cheery
" more-wet " before each rain-storm ; so was it
any wonder that their hearts were heavy to-
night?

The old man vaulted lightly over the bar-
way into the pasture while the boy crawled
between the bars. They went on for fifteen
or twenty rods and then crawled under a
clump of small spruces and sat down where
the leaves were still dry.

104 Trails to Woods and Waters

Suddenly, from their very midst, came a
clear shrill whistle, pure and sweet as the note
of a piccolo, " bob- white, bob- white, bob-bob-
white."

" They are right here in the bush, Ben,"
exclaimed the boy in an eager whisper, pull-
ing excitedly at his companion's sleeve.

The old man chuckled and laughed softly.
" That was me," he whispered. " I had my
hand over my mouth so you could not tell
where the sound came from." Again he re-
peated the musical call and both waited and
listened. Then, faint and far across the pas-
ture land, like an echo, came the reply, " bob-
white, bob-white, bob-bob-white."

"That's him," whispered Ben. "Now
keep perfectly still and you will hear some-
thing worth while."

Presently the two watchers under the little
spruces heard the well-known whirr of short,
fast beating wings, and a second later Bob-
White himself plumped down under the cover
within two yards of them. He shook the wet
from his wings, preened his feathers for a

The Family of Bob- White 105

moment and then swelling out his breast, ut-
tered his sweet call-note. It was useless for
the old man to call now that the real Bob-
White had sounded his roll call so they
waited, and listened.

Again came the low whistle from far away
in the pasture land but this time it was only,
" white, white, white." Soon the swift whirr
of beating wings was heard and a moment
later the second quail alighted under the
scrub spruce.

" Cureet, cureee, cur-r, cure-e-e," cried
Bob- White in soft, quail words of love and
welcome. " Peep, pure-e-, e-e, e-e," replied
the chicken.

The greeting and response were scarcely
over when another quail whirred under the
bush and another, and still another.

" Cureet, cure-e-e, cur-r, cure-e-e," was the
salutation of Bob- White to each newcomer as
they huddled together and rejoiced in bird
language that they had found one another
again. After a few minutes they quieted
down and the listeners knew that they had

1 06 Trails to Woods and Waters

formed themselves into the well-known bunch
and fallen asleep, so they stole quietly away,
leaving them dry and comfortable under the
spruce, but it was only part of the family,
Bob-White and four of his chicks; the little
hen and the other four had gone away in the
hunter's game bag.

December and January came and went and
the leafless, flowerless world was in the clutch
of midwinter. Day after day the snow fell
and the cold was so intense that sometimes in
the deep woods the stout heart of maple or
birch was cracked asunder.

One morning, when the small boy who had
gone to the pasture that night with Old Ben
to search for the quail awoke, he found the
world ice-clad and snow-bound and in the
clutch of a terrible freeze. The windows were
so clouded with frost that he could not see out
until he had melted it with his breath, but
when the frost had been melted, the boy cried
out with grief, for there upon the window-sill
huddled close to the glass was the stiff, stark
form of his Bob-White.

The Family of Bob-White 107

He had died with his breast to the window
pane with only a sixteenth of an inch of trans-
parent something' between him and the
warmth that would have saved him. As
pitilessly as the glacier grinds the pebble to
sand the great freeze had pressed him against
the window until his stout little heart was still,
and then, as though ashamed of what she had
done, nature had shrouded him in a white
mantle of snow.

With difficulty the boy raised the window
and took the dead quail in his hands. Care-
fully he brushed the snow from his gray
brown coat and smoothed out his ruffled
feathers.

It was a far cry from that warm spring
morning, when he had first seen him on the
old barpost whistling his cheery call, to this
snow-bound frozen world that seemed more
dead than alive. Poor little Bob-White; he
had eluded the hawk, the owl and the weasel,
the fox, the raccoon and the hunter, but the
great freeze had caught him, so near and yet
so far from cover. With a sigh the boy put

io8 Trails to Woods and Waters

him back in the little snow grave on the win-
dow-sill and shut the window. There he
would let him lie in his soft coverlet of ermine
until the great storm was over.

CHAPTER V
THE BUSY BEE

CHAPTER V

The Busy Bee

THERE is no more pleasant recollection of
boyhood and its pleasures than that of bee
hunting. I never visit the country in July
or August even now without getting the old
fever to take a bee box and try my luck again
in tracking the honey-bee through the blue
sky to his honey laden tree.

City bred people may often have wondered
about the phrase " a bee line," but they never
would had they lined fugitive bees to their
tree. Once the bee has filled her honey
stomach a shaft of light is not more straight
than the line she makes for the tree.

How full of bird song and sunlight, of dew
laden grass, and perfume of flowers and
shrubs are these memories of bee hunting.

112 Trails to Woods and Waters

In boyhood days, bare brown feet brushed
the dew, sparkling like diamonds, from the
grass. If the man goes bee hunting he must
wear shoes and thus lose half the fun.

What excitement there was, once we got a
line on the tree. Over fences and stone walls
we raced, through swamps and brooks. No
hill was too steep, and no thicket too dense to
be penetrated, as long as we kept the fugitive
bee in sight, or at least kept the line upon the
tree.

To most of the readers of this book the
privilege and education of bee hunting will be
denied, but many of you can avail yourselves
of a very good substitute, and that is the study
of the beehive, even though it be the back
yard of your city home. I know many a man
who keeps bees with both profit and pleasure
within the city limits of some large metropolis.
So if you cannot go bee hunting, study the
hive, and you can learn most of the secrets
that the country boy learns following the bee
line to the honey laden tree.

One has merely to take his stand near the

The Busy Bee 1 1 3

hive on some warm summer day, when the
honey flow is at its height, at about noon to
realize fully how true is the old proverbial
phrase, " as busy as a bee."

" Hum, hum, zip, zip, hum." They come
like bullets in a lively skirmish, a steady
stream, all laden with the sweet of every
honey flower that blooms within a radius of
three miles. It matters not whether the hive
is composed of black native, hybrids, golden
banded Carniolas, or pure Italians, the story
is just the same, " hum, hum, zip, zip, hum."
All bringing home some of that delicious
sweet which the wonderful chemistry of sun
and rain, dew and mould have distilled.

But no idler gains entrance to the hive, for
if the honey stomach which is just in front of
the real stomach, is not well filled, it fares
hard with the lazy one.

No military camp was ever guarded more
rigidly against the intrusion of the enemy,
than is the hive against the laggard, and
against thieves from other hives.

From a dozen to a score of good soldiers

1 14 Trails to Woods and Waters

stand guard all day, with spears in readiness.
Each bee who enters "has to possess the pass-
word of a well filled honey sack, or the odor
of her own particular hive, or she will never
gain entrance.

If fifty hives were set up in a row, and each
hive contained from twenty -five to fifty thou-
sand bees, that rule of every bee to her own
hive would be as rigidly enforced as though
there were only two hives instead of fifty.
Does each hive have a password so that its
inhabitants are known from those of several
hundred other hives, or does each bee possess
physiological characteristics, that differenti-
ate her from all the others? These, and other
explanations have been proposed by natural-
ists, from time to time, but all such explana-
tions have been rejected as visionary and
impractical.

Naturalists are now agreed that the sen-
tinels at the entrance to the hive recognize
their own by the sense of smell alone. Even
so, how keen must be that sense, when a hun-
dred hives are to be discriminated between.

The Busy Bee 115

Truly these little folks who gather sweets for
us, put our simple notions of biology to a
severe test, when we undertake to explain
some of the simplest things about the hive.

" Hum, hum, zip, zip, hum, hum." From
how far afield does this colony come, and
which are its most favored flowers?

All through the winter the swarm was
dormant, huddling together in a conical
shaped mass. By constantly changing their
position, so that the bees on the inside of the
mass came to the outside, while those outside
got inside they kept warm. On warm days
when the thermometer touched forty, there
was uneasiness in the bunch, and occasionally
a bee more active than her fellows crawled out
to see how the winter was progressing. The
sugar maker occasionally fishes a bee out of a
pail of sap, or he will see one on the trunk of
a maple tree, sucking sweet from a crevice
from which oozes sap, that is frozen at night
and turned into honey-like syrup.

The honey-bee always finds the first pussy-
willow from which she takes pollen and the

1 1 6 Trails to Woods and Waters

first spring wild flowers. Her keen sense of
smell probably takes her far afield in the early
spring before flowering has really begun. The
lilac, and all the cultivated flowers she spies
out, but it is not until the new grass is a few
inches high, and the heads of the white clover
appear that the honey flow can be said to have
begun.

From then on, the honey-bee is a free-
booter. All the floral world is hers, and she
claims her own wherever she finds it. Dis-
turb this robber and sacker of your orchards
and fields if you dare. She will defend her
right to all trees, shrubs and plants that bloom
and you will not long dispute titles with
her.

If the honey-bee could only gather honey
from the red clover! This is the bee-keeper's
zenith of hope, but the long heads of the red
clover, which contain much more of the deli-
cious sweet than do the shorter heads of the
white, are not for the honey-bee. Nature has
made her with too short a tongue to reach this
treasure, so the bumble-bee and the butterfly

The Busy Bee 1 1 7

feed on it, while their more useful cousin goes
unfed.

On about every head of every stalk in the
buckwheat field you can see one of these
golden-banded robbers. Away in the deep
woods in the creamy flowers of the basswood,
they are humming and tonguing the stamens
for the hidden sweet. All through the sum-
mer days, and well into the autumn, the
goldenrod will pay toll to the hive. No
roadside flower that contains sweet is too
mean or insignificant to escape the notice of
this industrious honey-getter. While men
idle she works, taught by some marvelous in-
tuition that soon the flowers will fade, and
snow cover the ground and that if the honey-
bees would not perish like the bumble-bee,
they must be storing up food for winter.

A great many erroneous ideas are held by
the general public as to the position of the
queen-bee in the colony. In the minds of
many she is the master mind, and a queen of
absolute power. But this is not so, while
she is a royal queen, and her kingdom is a

1 1 8 Trails to Woods and Waters

veritable empire in wjiich, in a certain sense,
she is supreme, yet it is a limited monarchy,
and her powers are more like those of a
limited monarch than those of a despot.

The colony would even go so far as to kill
their queen if they didn't like her, or thought
she was not serving the best interests of the
hive, quite as the human family have disposed
of royalty that had become obnoxious.

Although the hive can do almost nothing
without the presence and assistance of the
queen, yet she is not its whole power. This
is located in the body politic, just as it is in a
limited monarchy.

In many ways the hive can be controlled
through its queen. For instance, if the hive
swarms, and a part of its members leave and
take up quarters on the limb of an adjacent
tree, they ascertain if the queen has come with
them, and if she is not discovered in the clus-
ter, they at once return to the hive. So when
the bee-keeper does not wish to have the hive
swarm, he keeps what is called a drone-trap
over the front door of the hive. This enables

The Busy Bee 119

the workers to go and come as they wish but
the queen and drones cannot leave the hive
until the trap is removed.

Swarming is a wise provision of nature
by means of which the hive is kept from be-
coming congested, and it is an unwritten law
in beedom that the queen goes with the swarm-
ing bees. This leaves the old hive without a
queen and consequently without means of
keeping its numbers good, for you must re-
member that the life of a bee is only about
sixty days, so if a hive is left for any length of
time without a queen to lay eggs and hatch
out new members, the entire colony dies, and
the bee-keeper loses a hive. But this rarely
happens, for these little people are very in-
genious. Much more so than man, in fact,
and can supply any existing want in their
small but most active house.

When the old hive is left without a queen
and none is ready to hatch, the colony may set
to work and make a queen to order, as you
might say.

In our human government we have often

1 20 Trails to Woods and Waters

created new royal families, but we have never
actually created new queens, as the bees have
done.

Several queen cells containing eggs, that
have previously been laid by the absconding
queen, are now sealed up and allowed to
hatch, and the first new queen hatched crawls
forth to receive the homage of her subjects
which is hers in full measure once she has
mated. But she at once takes a precaution
against usurpers that our human royalty have
often employed, for she kills all the unhatched
or partially developed queens and thus in-
sures her sovereignty.

This act done, her admiring subjects crowd
around her and do homage, feeding her pre-
pared food from their small tongues, and
looking for all the world, as they cluster
about her, like a large daisy, with its golden
queenly centre.

It is a time of perturbation when the new
queen flies forth to mate. She is at once
missed and clouds of bees pour forth from the
hive in search of her. This confusion often

The Busy Bee 121

alarms the novice into thinking that the hive
is about to swarm.

But the mating queen cares not for the
alarm of her subjects, she has more important
business on hand this morning.

Up, up she soars in a graceful spiral,
searching the upper air for her mate. As
every hive contains several hundred drones
who were hatched for this express purpose
and for this alone, the queen is usually suc-
cessful the first morning of her quest.

In the one-hundredth part of a second,
while flying like bullets, the virgin queen and
her mate make possible the laying of from five
hundred to seven hundred thousand fertile
eggs which may produce in time two or three
dozen new hives of honey gatherers.

But the poor drone forfeits his life in the
act. His generative organs are torn from
his body and carried back by the queen to the
hive, while the drone flutters to earth and dies
having served his end in the economy of
nature.

After the mating season is past the drones

122 Trails to Woods and Waters

are either driven from the hive, or killed, so
that it shall contain only the queen and her
workers.

Each hive of bees that is carrying its full
complement of individuals contains the fol-
lowing:

First and foremost there is the queen, the
gentle ruler of this wonderful kingdom, capa-
ble of laying from two to three thousand eggs
a day in the laying season, and upon whose
fertility the life of the hive depends. But
she is not the only egg layer in the hive, for
the workers are females as well, some of them
capable of laying eggs, but the great differ-
ence between the eggs of these two egg-layers
is that the queen's eggs may hatch queens,
workers or drones, while the eggs of the
worker will only hatch drones.

The drones are of course the males, whose
only excuse for living is to fertilize the
queen.

They never gather honey, and feed greedily
at the store inside the hive. But their day is
only a short one, although they live upon the

The Busy Bee 123

sweets of the land, without having to toil for
it while they exist.

Briefly considered the inner life of the hive
is as follows:

All through the cold months, from late in
November up to nearly the first of May the
hive is dormant. During this time its mem-
bers, which are now all workers, hang in a
large conical cluster in the hive. But there
is a constant movement of the individuals in
the cluster, which keeps it warm.

From time to time they feed upon the
honey that has been stored up for that pur-
pose, but they are not as hungry as they would
be if more active. If the winter supply of
honey runs low, the bee-keeper feeds them
upon sugar melted to a thin syrup.

On an exceptionally warm day in April the
swarm begins to warm up, and as so6n as any
of the earliest wild flowers blossom the bees
are on hand to take toll.

So it will be seen they are no laggards and
they tread very close upon the heels of the
tardy spring.

124 Trails to Woods and Waters

I do not think any one knows just the
chemistry of wax making. It, of course,
comes from plants and flowers, but just what
ones, and just how it is prepared only the
reticent bee knows.

As soon as the honey flow begins in the
spring the colony set to work to draw out
the cells in which to store the golden nectar.
Soon in each of the little sections which are
made to hold a pound of honey, a wax curtain
is started beginning at the top and working
down. On each side of this curtain are
plainly stamped the hexagonal cells which,
when they have been drawn out laterally, will
be the fully developed cells. It is a marvel
of workmanship this golden cellular mass,
each cell symmetrical and nicely sealed. But
each honey gatherer has a tri-square on the
end of his nose, his proboscis being triangular,
and six of these triangles placed side by side,
and point to point give him the perfect
hexagon. This cell when completed is about
three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter and
about three-quarters of an inch deep.

The Busy Bee 125

It is a wonderful sight to peep into the
observation hive when the honey flow is at
its height, and see these thousands and tens
of thousands of industrious little folks coming
and going, swarming in and out from the
partly filled cells, each upon his mission of
good to man.

Upon particularly hot days if you put
your hand close to the hive you can some-
times feel a cold current of air not strong
but very perceptible.

Inside a hundred cold air fans are going,
keeping the temperature of the hive at a
normal pitch and also thickening the honey.
This is done by the wings which will fan away
ceaselessly for hours.

The hive is always kept scrupulously clean,
for the honey-makers appreciate the fact that
any foreign substance would taint the honey.

Each spring the hive is carefully cleaned
and all small cracks are sealed up with wax,
so that it is as nearly impervious to moisture
and dust as possible.

Sometimes when the honey flow is heavy

126 Trails to Woods and Waters

the bee-keeper places a hive upon the scales,
and it occasionally registers five or six pounds
in a single day, but this is much above the
average.

There are many kinds of honey, varying
according to the flora of the vicinity in which
the bees are kept. Goldenrod, basswood,
white clover and buckwheat are among the
best known. Alfalfa is also a great honey
plant, and the flow from this source is great
and bee-keeping in the alfalfa country is most
lucrative.

There is no subject in the entire range of
natural history more fascinating than that of
bee study with the possible exception of the
ants, who are about as much of a mystery to
man as are the bees.

It is a biting satire upon the wisdom and
ingenuity of men, that long before God
placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden
the bees and the ants had perfected man's
two principal forms of government, upon
which he is still laboring, namely, the kingdom
and the republic.

The Busy Bee 127

One cannot study either the ant-hill or the
beehive for long and keep his conceit and
self-confidence, as the particular capstone of
creation, and the impersonation of all wisdom.

Who taught the bees the art of govern-
ment, which they possess to such a marked
degree? Who gave them their moral code,
and their nice distinction between the fit and
the unfit? Who told them that the heart of
the rose and the lily were sweet, and that the
sweet could be gathered upon that subtle
tongue? Who taught them to predigest this
food and to prepare it so nicely for man?
How and where did they learn that half of the
year was biting cold and that the flowers were
all asleep for many months? Who told them
that they must provide for this lapse hi the
bounty of nature?

What governs the instinct of swarming?
Which are the master minds who lead the way
to the new bee tree? Where in that small
brain is located the sense of direction, that
will lead the little wanderers as straight home
as a shaft of light would travel? Why do not

128 Trails to Woods and Waters

the bees who stay in the hive swarm, and those
who swarm stay at home?

These and a thousand others are the queries
that daily and hourly confront the keeper of
bees, and he has never yet satisfactorily an-
swered any of them.

CHAPTER VI
DOWNSTREAM IN A CANOE

CHAPTER VI

Downstream in a Canoe

ALL my life I had dreamed of the wilder-
ness beyond the pale of civilization, the
home of the bear and the moose, the deer and
the beaver, and wondered vainly if I would
ever be fortunate enough to visit this wonder-
land, the " Big Woods."

The little brook in the meadow my fancy
had transformed into a wonderful stream in
the Maine woods, and going for the cows had
been translated into " moose calling " by the
same magic.

But now my dreams had all come true.
I no longer had to play that the meadow
brook was a wilderness stream, for such a
river was at the very moment slipping beneath
the keel of our canoe, and as for moose call-
ing, why the guide the evening before had
fashioned a birch bark horn that he said would

132 Trails to Woods and Waters

call all the bull moose in the State of Maine
•«

right into our very camp.

It was twilight of a wonderful day, late in
October. The funeral pyres of leaf and frond
blazed high upon the hilltops, and glowed
with rich deep red, low down in the quiet
valley. Along all the smaller watercourses
the sumac and soft maple glowed, while the
bright berries of the mountain ash occasion-
ally showed among the duller reds.

A little later all this brilliant color would
fade. The leaves would first turn to yellows
and browns, then to grays, and finally they
would return to dust, making way for the
new buds.

All day long we had been drifting down
the swift current of a wonderful stream in
northern Maine. Perhaps this stream was
no more wonderful than a thousand others
throughout the world, but it seemed wonder-
ful to me, for I was going with it on its im-
petuous errand, and I fell into all its moods.
When it ran swift and turbulent, my own
blood pulsed more freely. When it was deep

Downstream in a Canoe 133

and placid, my own mood became contempla-
tive. How often I thought, during that cruise,
of the passage of the " living waters." It
seemed to me that all waters that foamed and
gleamed, bubbled and gurgled, roared and
leapt, were living.

That noon we had stopped at the mouth of
a stream, clear as crystal, and as cold as ice.
I knew the moment I saw this pure little
brook that it contained trout. The trout is
in some ways a very particular fish, and he is
especially fussy about his abode.

A trout cannot tolerate muddy, sluggish
water. The brook that he inhabits must leap
and sparkle. The trout is a leaping, spark-
ling fish, and his stream must match his own
character. There must be no moss on the
stones in his brook, and no frog spittle.

So the little brook being limpid and pure
had provided our dinner in the form of a
dozen handsome trout. After the fish were
dressed, a thin strip of pork had been put
inside each, and then they had been put in
the ashes.

134 Trails to Woods and Waters

There were only two occupants of the light
canoe that felt the slightest stroke of the
paddle so quickly. That day, two was com-
pany, and I am afraid that three would have
been a crowd. The guide merely watched
the current and the nose of the canoe, occa-
sionally dipping the paddle into the water
to steady her, or to change her course, In
long stretches of quiet, deep water, he was
obliged to paddle, but for most of the way,
Nature was working for us, and that mystic
something that was calling to the waters was
speeding our canoe swiftly downstream.

There were plenty of sights and sounds in
this Maine wilderness to keep one watching
and guessing. Little birds peeped curiously
at us from the thickets, and many an empty
nest, that had been cunningly hidden months
before, now showed plainly as the green
mantle that had shielded it became more
transparent. The great fish-hawk occasion-
ally soared majestically by, or stooped to the
stream and picked up a chub, almost under
our noses. The kingfisher rattled and chat-

Downstream in a Canoe 135

tered and clattered, whenever we came upon
him, and made it quite plain to us that we
had invaded his domain. The bittern uttered
his strange cry, and then flopped slowly away.
Crows screamed at us from the treetops, and
the jay squalled derisively, and then flew
away to tell all the dwellers in the forest that
a strange fish was swimming the stream, and
that the fearful creature, man, had something
to do with it, so the whole affair was to be
shunned.

That noisy, gleeful imp, the red squirrel,
also scolded and barked, whenever we went
ashore, and he did not always let us pass
unchallenged, when we kept to the water.
Trout leaped in the deep pools at dusk and
dawn, and we always sought to take some
for breakfast or supper. But there were
other fishermen besides ourselves. Besides
the kingfisher and the fish-hawk, the otter and
the mink also took fish, while Bruin, clumsy
as he seems, makes many a good meal upon
trout.

We held the canoe anchored to the shore,

136 Trails to Woods and Waters

by some bushes, for an hour one twilight,
while we watched Bruin fishing. He took
his fish just as a raccoon would, crouching
above the pool, with his paw in readiness, until
some luckless trout swam to the surface for a
fly or miller. The stroke was so quick that
we did not see it, but we did see the trout that
went spinning into the bushes, and we also
saw the " smile " on the bear's face, as he
lumbered off with his prize. The guide told
me that many of the big cats also fish in the
same manner.

CHAPTER VII
JACKING AND MOOSE-CALLING

CHAPTER VII

Jacking and Moose-calling

THERE is a strange fascination to most wild
animals in the gleam of firelight, especially
at night. Nearly all of them fear the bright
mysterious something, that leaps and dances,
flickers and fades so magically.

Most wild creatures are of two minds, half
fearful and half fascinated, and love to linger
on the outskirts of the light, where they can
see and not be seen.

Probably the instinctive fear of fire that
wild animals have springs from their sad ex-
periences with forest fires. It is no wonder
that they fear this power which they cannot
understand, this demon that will, in a few
fearful hours, lay waste their deep fastnesses,
turning cool sweet shade into an inferno, and
the sweet air into a stifling, choking, stran-
gling nightmare, from which so many of them

140 Trails to Woods and Waters

find it impossible to escape. No sight is

•*

more majestic or terrible than that of a forest
fire, especially when the winds fan the flames,
which leap from treetop to treetop, crowning
the forest with a wreath of brass, while its
denizens flee to lakes and streams for shelter,
some going slowly, but others on the wings
of the wind.

The part that fire has played in the rela-
tions of man and beast is most important.
Many an unfortunate traveller has defended
himself effectually from wolves, with a few
bright flames, when powder and ball have
failed.

One evening after supper, we lighted our
jack, and pushed off in a canoe to try what
magic there was in fire.

The night was wonderfully still, just as it
frequently is in autumn, when the constella-
tions are bright, and the Hunter's Moon is at
its full. There were plenty of night sounds,
such as the unearthly laughing of a loon, or
the hooting of an owl, but when the wilder-
ness had again lapsed into silence, it seemed

Jacking and Moose-calling 141

even stiller for the night voices that had
spoken.

For half an hour, we drifted silently down-
stream seeing and hearing small creatures that
were attracted by our jack. Presently there
was a slight sound in the underbrush, which
seemed to keep just so far from the stream,
and to be following parallel with our course.
Once, when a dry twig snapped with a sharp
report, the guide whispered, " deer." A twig
never crunches under the sharp, cutting hoof
of a deer, but always pops. After the sounds
in the bushes had followed parallel to the
stream for a few rods, they became plainer, as
though the forest stranger was overcoming his
timidity, or getting more curious about us.
Just ahead was a sharp turn in the stream,
and a point that ran out into the water. Here
the guide worked the boat carefully in to-
wards the shore, where he held it stationary,
by thrusting a paddle into the sand. There
we waited and listened, my nerves tingling
with excitement. Then presently the sounds
of breaking twigs, and the swish of parting

142 Trails to Woods and Waters

bushes drew nearer, and a dark form crossed
a patch of moonlight about fifty feet away.
A second later it came out into the outer edge
of light cast by the jack, and stood erect and
alert. There was no mistaking that proud
figure, with its graceful outline, and slim,
arching neck, even if there had not been a
magnificent crown of horns, probably a five
pointer, and two large luminous eyes, that
were wide with fear and wonder. A moment
later a second head was thrust into the aureole
of light, and a doe, also wide-eyed and won-
dering, stood beside her lord, and gazed fear-
fully, yet fascinated at this strange will-o'-
the-wisp, that danced on the river. It was as
pretty a wilderness picture as ever delighted
the eye of woodsman, but it was all too brief,
for a telltale breath of wind came dancing
over the stream and blew our hot body scent
full in their distended, quivering nostrils.
There was a loud snort, a whistle, and the
pair went crashing through the woods, just
as though it had been daylight instead of
semi-darkness, and the path had been smooth,

IT WAS AS PRETTY A WILDERNESS PICTURE AS EVER
DELIGHTED THE EYES OF A WOODSMAN

Jacking and Moose-calling 143

instead of laid with a score of pitfalls and
every step filled with neckbr caking obstacles.

We had had our fun for that night, so
paddled leisurely back to camp, well pleased
with the experience.

Another allurement that we tried, which
was equally interesting, was moose-calling.
For this, my companion first made a moose
call. This was done by stripping a yellow
birch of a section of its bark, about three feet
long, which was rolled into a rude megaphone.

This call was also used on a moonlight
night, when the witchery of the Hunter's
Moon was on the forest, and we went in the
canoe, as before. This is a favorite manner
of stalking game, as one can go so much
stiller than on foot. It must not be imagined
that we had any response to our entreaties
the first night or the second. In fact, it was
nearly a week before our patience was re-
warded.

We were lying in a little cove, which was
an arm of a wonderful forest lake. The
canoe was held stationary by a paddle that

144 Trails to Woods and Waters

was thrust in the mud. My companion
rested the larger end of the moose call on the
bow of the canoe, took a deep breath, puffed
out his cheek like the unfortunate man who
plays the bass tuba in the band, and a deep
chested bellow echoed across the lake. First,
it was low keyed and uncertain, like the rum-
ble of distant thunder, but as the sound rose
in pitch it swelled in volume, filling the forest
and echoing along the lake. Finally, it died
away in an uncertain wail, like the bellow of a
cow who is calling for the calf that the man in
the blue frock has just loaded into the wagon
and driven away with.

We waited and listened, but only the cries
of night birds reached our ears. Again the
guide flung this deep chested bellow, that I
do not see how human lungs can produce,
across the lake, and we waited and listened.
This time it was answered, faint and far, but
still it was an answering call, and that was
more than we had heard before.

Again the guide called, this time putting
more of defiance than of entreaty into the

Jacking and Moose-calling .145

sound. This, too, was answered, and the an-
swering call was defiant as well. Then there
was silence for two or three minutes, while
we waited for our rival to make the next move.
Soon we were rewarded for our patience by
a third call, this time much plainer.

" He's coming round the lake," whispered
the guide, and he sent back a defiant bellow.
Then there was silence again while the night
winds sighed in the treetops, and the ripples
on the water softly licked the sides of the
canoe, and murmured on the pebbly beach.

In the course of five minutes, we could hear
him coming, thrashing the bushes with his
antlers, and occasionally stopping as though
uncertain.

Each time his thundering challenge rolled
across the lake we responded with an equally
defiant bellow. At last we could hear him
thrashing the bushes with his antlers, and the
guide reached over with a paddle and
thrashed with the paddle upon some bushes
that grew along the shore. Then he blew a
short, defiant bellow, that plainly said, " Come

146 Trails to Woods and Waters

on, my fine fellow, and I will give you a ter-
rible thrashing."

This was more than the uncertain bull could
stand. He had been challenged, his courage
had been questioned, his reputation was at
stake, so with a short bellow of rage, and a
snort of defiance, he tore through the under-
brush, bending down small saplings as he
came.

We could now plainly hear his hoofs clack,
as he came, like huge castanets. Then he
burst out into the open, his head erect, his
nostrils distended, his eyes blazing, his whole
attitude belligerent.

He was a magnificent picture as he stood
there in the full moonlight, clearly outlined
against the forest. The broad spread of his
antlers, his massive head, his deep chest, and
his great height, all proclaimed him a king.
The rightful king of the forest whose denizens
should honor and whom man should admire
as one of God's splendid creatures.

Whether he would have come still nearer
and finally either scented or actually seen

Jacking and Moose-calling 147

us, I do not know. These striking scenes in
the woods are usually fleeting, seen for a few
seconds and then they vanish and leave one
wondering whether his senses have not played
him false after all. He had not stood in full
view five seconds when the telltale, warning
cry of a loon echoed across the lake and with
a snort of alarm he thundered into the depths
from which he came and we saw him no more,
although we could hear his noisy progress
through the deep woods for several minutes.
When the last sound of breaking underbrush
had ceased we paddled back to camp, well
pleased with the night's moose calling.

CHAPTER VIII
IN BEAVER-LAND

CHAPTER VIII
In Beaver-Land

ONE afternoon, when the splendor of the
autumnal forest had begun to pale, and grays
and browns had partially taken the place of
saffron and gold and flaming red, we floated
down into the pleasant valley that I call
beaver-land.

For three or four miles above the first of
the chain of five lakes, there were plenty of
signs that beaver dwelt not far distant. The
first intimation that we had of being near the
colony, was the stumps of hundreds of poplars
and maples. These stumps were conical in
shape and where the tree had not yet quite
succumbed to these active rodents, it was
shaped like an hour-glass. The largest of

152 Trails to Woods and Waters

these trees were two or two and a half feet in
diameter, but the guide told me that he had
occasionally seen trees three or four feet in
diameter that had fallen beneath the teeth of
these ambitious woodsmen.

Further on down the valley we occasionally
saw a log that had lodged against some root
or projection in the bank. This log was on
its way to the dam perhaps, where it would
be worked into that structure, or maybe it
was intended for food and would be stored
under the ice, for use during the long winter.

As we drifted further and further into
beaver-land, the wonder of it all grew upon
me. It did not seem so wonderful that a
beaver should fell one tree, or half a dozen,
but when I saw acres of timber nearly
stripped by these wonderful animals my re-
spect for all four-footed creatures grew.

The five lakes that comprised beaver-land
were like a series of locks in a canal, each
lake setting back to the dam of the one above.
My companion told me that beaver dams were
usually in pairs one above the other. He

In Beaver-Land 153

said it was hard to tell why the beaver built in
this way, but his own theory was that the
wise builder kept the upper lake as a reservoir,
for he always built his house in the lower lake,
with this second lake at his command, if the
first dam sprung a-leak and the water fell so
as to expose the beaver houses to attack, the
beaver could repair the leak in the dam, and
immediately fill the lower lake from the
upper, without waiting for it to fill in the
natural way. If this is the real secret for
these double lakes, it looks very much as
though the beavers were capable of planning
on their own account. When we saw cords
and cords of poplar and maple wood, cut into
pieces about three feet in length piled up in
front of each dam, we were again forced to
believe that the beaver is a planner.

Some of the beaver houses which were old
were so overgrown with water grasses that
they looked like small hillocks in the lake,
while others were smooth and symmetrical, as
though they were fresh from the mason's
trowel. Another thing that looked much as

154 Trails to Woods and Waters

though the beaver could plan for himself,
were certain breakwaters running out into the
stream above the upper lake. They were al-
ternated, and the guide said they were to break
the force of the ice during the high water in
springtime and to keep it from rushing down
upon the dams and demolishing them. An*
other clever piece of work in beaver-land is a
channel that is sometimes cut around the end
of a dam, so that the water may flow off in a
waste-water, and not wash the dam by its con-
tinual flow.

The beavers caused us four hard portages
around their dams that day, but by twilight
we camped upon the lower of the five lakes
close to the dam. The same evening after we
had eaten our supper of broiled fish, biscuit
and coffee, we drew our canoe up on the bank
of the lake and prepared to watch the opera-
tion of dam building, which, from the newly
cut logs and fresh mud that we saw upon the
dam, we knew was going on.

We tried the old ruse of displacing some
logs and sods, in hopes that the little builders

In Beaver-Land 155

would discover the leak and come forth to re-
pair the damage. I felt quite mean when I
saw the rent that we had made in the struc-
ture, and was half inclined to repair the dam-
age myself and trust to luck to see the beavers
at work, but I was most desirous of seeing the
little builders on the spot and so suffered the
water to stream through the break.

We took a commanding position in a tall
pine near the dam from which we could see
far up the lake and across the low lying valley
in every direction. It was rather tedious
waiting, holding on to an uncertain perch
forty or fifty feet up in the pine. We soon
got cramped and stiff, but the game for which
we were out was an exciting one, and our an-
ticipation helped while away the two solid
hours that passed before we saw much that in-
terested us.

How still it was between the night cries
that came to our ears from the distant forest.
There was always the low gurgling glee of the
water as it slipped through the hole that we
had made in the dam, but when the hooting

156 Trails to Woods and Waters

of an owl or the barking of a fox had died
away and we had only the soft sighing of the
wind in the pines, and the murmur of the
water, the wilderness seemed like some en-
chanted land upon which there had been laid
a spell of silence, deep and abiding.

The heavens were so studded with stars
that it seemed as though there was not room
for another, while the milky-way glowed
white and luminous. The Hunter's Moon
was at its full and flooded the distant vistas
of the forest with a light almost as bright as
day. Every star in heaven and the great lu-
minous moon were reflected in the lake, which
shimmered and sparkled almost phosphores-
cently. It was a scene to make one draw
long deep breaths, and the pulse to beat fast
and strong.

Some distance upstream, probably a mile
away, we heard a tree fall with a thundering
crash, which echoed across the lake again and
again. From the sound we knew that a tree
not less than two feet had been laid low.

We had concluded that the energies of the

In Beaver-Land 157

colony were all employed in tree cutting for
that night and were about to descend, when
we noticed several short logs floating down to-
wards the dam; they seemed to be floating
much faster than the current would naturally
carry them and we were at first unable to ac-
count for it, but when the logs got nearer to
the dam we made out the dark head of a
beaver floating behind each log and the rapid-
ity with which the logs had floated was ex-
plained. Each was being pushed by an en-
ergetic log driver.

When within about a hundred feet of the
dam the beavers evidently discovered the
damage that we had done, for they left their
logs and swam hurriedly to the break. One
climbed into the crevasse and tried to pull the
ends of projecting sticks together. All
seemed much excited, for they swam to and
fro, now disappearing under the water, as
though they had dove to the bottom to see how
far down the break extended, and then re-
appearing in the break. We thought we
counted half a dozen, but they disappeared so

158 Trails to Woods and Waters

suddenly and reappeared in such unexpected
places that we were not sure of their num-
ber.

Finally all swam away upstream where
they were gone about twenty minutes. But
they soon returned pushing alder and willow
bushes before them in the water. These they
stuck into the foundation of the dam, filling
the gap with a row of stakes or pickets. So
far they had set to work just as a farmer
would mend a brush fence. Then they went
away upstream again and reappeared in about
the same time that they had before. This
time they brought more brush, which they
wove between the stakes, laterally. This was
evidently the backbone, for they soon brought
sods, which they floated in the water just as
they had the sticks, and laid them in front of
the brush fence that they had already built.
The current carried the sods into all the
crevasses and the flow of water was lessened
but it was not until they had carried sods and
mud for an hour that the break was entirely
filled. In a day or two when the mud and sod

In Beaver-Land 159

had dried, the repairs on the dam would not
be noticed.

Several times that night we heard the crash
of falling trees and as stray logs occasionally
floated down and lodged against the dam, we
concluded that quite a gang were engaged in
wood-cutting further up the lake.

After we had descended the old pine and
returned to camp, the guide told me many
interesting things about the beaver.

The beaver seems to be a very social fellow,
living in communities. His family life also
seems to be very pleasant, for sometimes there
will be fifteen or even twenty beavers living
in the very largest lodges.

A family always comprises the old beavers,
the babies, the yearlings, and the two year
olds, but when they reach that age they are
shoved out into the world to make room for
the new babies. But this home-leaving is
probably no hardship for them, for the mating
instinct is by that time asserting itself, and
they seek out mates and make homes for
themselves.

160 Trails to Woods and Waters

The dam building instinct of the beaver is
one of the most remarkable instincts in the
animal kingdom.

It enables its possessors to build dams of
wonderful symmetry and size ; structures that
it would seem impossible for such small crea-
tures to build.

The beaver's dam is built for protection, to
make a little Venice where he shall be secure
from his enemies. Just as the feudal lords
of old surrounded their castles with moats, he
surrounds his lodge with a broad lake, so that
his enemies cannot get at him as easily as they
otherwise would. The entrance to his house
is always under water, and to protect himself
against low water, which would sometimes be
felt in a stream, he dams the stream, and
thus makes sure of keeping the water above
his underground passage. The lake also
serves as a place of storage for the beaver's
great supply of wood, which is his food in
winter. If it were not for his dam, the
wood would probably be swept down-
stream, and the beaver, who is locked under

In Beaver-Land 161

the ice in winter, would have to go hun-
gry-

In France the beavers are nearly all bank
beavers, and do not build houses. Probably,
because the streams are deep and sluggish,
and the water is of a uniform depth for the
entire year, but in America nearly all the
beavers are house-builders. Once in a while
a bank beaver is found in this country. He
makes his home in a burrow in the bank, as
the otter does, but his life is not as well or-
dered as that of the house beaver.

The wood-cutting habit of the beaver is as
remarkable as his dam -building instinct.
When we see trees three or four feet in diam-
eter laid low, by these industrious rodents,
we cannot deny that they have patience, and
pluck.

In cutting down trees the beaver stands
upon his hind legs, balancing himself on his
broad flat tail, and nips a girdle about the
tree. He then cuts another girdle above the
first, and pulls out the chip between. This
process is repeated until the forest monarch

1 62 Trails to Woods and Waters

falls. Usually, however, they confine them-
selves to trees a foot or less in diameter, as
these logs are more easily handled, both in
dam building and as food.

"As busy as a beaver" is a proverb, but
like many another proverb, it is only partly
true. For two or three months in the year the
beaver is a very busy fellow, but the rest of
the year, he is one of the laziest inhabitants of
woods and waters. All through the winter,
from the time that the first thick ice locks him
under the water, until it breaks up in the
spring, he sleeps in his lodge. When hungry
he nibbles away at his store of bark and if he
wants exercise he goes for a swim in the lake
to keep up his muscle. Then when the spring
rains unlock the ice door above him, and he
is free again, the male beaver who is over three
years of age, goes on his annual pilgrimage,
through lakes and streams.

He does not care much where he goes, as
long as he can find plenty of water with tim-
ber or brush near by.

All through the summer months he wan-

In Beaver-Land 163

ders, living a day or a week in a place, as the
humor seizes him.

When the first frost touches the soft maples
along the waterways, he turns his nose home-
ward.

Meanwhile the female beavers have been
rearing the young, and looking after the
yearlings and the two year olds.

Once the males return to the colony the
scene changes and from being an indolent
happy-go-lucky community it becomes a
village of industry, for the dam must be re-
paired and all the mud houses made ready for
winter. There is also the winter supply of
bark to cut, and in a large colony this means
cords.

Then on starlight nights when the moon is
at its full, and the autumn wind whispers in
the treetops, you will hear the trees falling
with a crash, that echoes away and away
through the silent forest, and across the peace-
ful beaver lake.

Then you will see hundreds and probably
thousands of small logs about three feet in

164 Trails to Woods and Waters

length, floating downstream to the lake. The
beaver has the same provident instinct as the
bee, who prods the white clover and the
goldenrod, bringing home their sweets, and
storing it up against the time of dearth. Does
this not look as though there was a calendar in
the animal and insect world?

What is more picturesque or pleasing in the
many happy surprises of the wilderness than
a beaver dam, holding in its strong arm a
beautiful woodland lake?

It does not look like a thing that was made
by hands, or teeth or feet either, for that mat-
ter, but just as though it grew here, and was a
part of nature. The ends of the logs are so
ragged, and the whole structure is so over-
grown with lichens and moss, and perhaps
willows or alders that it seems part and parcel
of nature's handiwork.

But as you fall to studying it and see how
well it was placed, how that great boulder was
made to brace the dam in the middle of the
stream, or a tree made to hold one end, or
how the natural features of the landscape

In Beaver-Land 165

were made to serve the beaver's ends, you
wonder at his cunning and his marvelous
builder's instinct. Then when you see his de-
vice for keeping the water from wearing the
dam by constant overflow, which is nothing
more or less than a waste-water dug about
one end of the dam, you are still more deeply
impressed with his sagacity.

The beaver might have learned his house-
building habit of the Indian, or perhaps the
Adobe house builders, so closely has he fol-
lowed their plan. But he is wiser than they,
for his front door is always locked.

How can we deny the wonder and the mys-
tery of this life in the beaver colony? The
village with its sages and wise men, the house-
hold with its heads and its babes and young-
sters, the strong wall or bulwark built about
the city for the mutual protection of all. The
supplies that have been stored up against the
time of dearth and the ingenious mind or in-
stinct, if you like the word better, that meets
and overcomes all these adverse condi-
tions?

1 66 Trails to Woods and Waters

This is the true , test of man or beast,
whether it be in the wilderness or the city, to
meet and overcome adverse conditions and to
make the desert bloom like the rose.

CHAPTER IX
ONE'S OWN BACK DOOR-YARD

CHAPTER IX

One's Own Back Door-yard

IT was about ten o'clock of as dismal a Sat-
urday morning as ever spoiled a boy's fun by
raining.

Old Ben and I had planned a fishing trip
that would have been memorable among all
the good times we had enjoyed together, but
it had rained so hard that my mother had
vetoed our going.

The lunch basket was packed, the bait dug,
and everything was in readiness except the
weather.

But how it did rain! Great gusts of wind
drove the rain before it in blinding sheets, and
small rivulets ran in the road, and in the walk.

If it had only been just a drizzle we would
not have minded. The fishing would have

170 Trails to Woods and Waters

been all the better, but this deluge put all
thoughts of our long planned trip out of
mind.

I sat on the back porch bewailing my hard
luck and watching the downpour. There
was some satisfaction in that, even if the
storm had spoiled my fun.

It was a regular duck's day, and no mis-
take. No creature that was not oiled from
head to foot could stand such a drenching as
this.

If I had been a girl, I might have had the
consolation of crying, but as I was a boy and
expected to celebrate my eleventh birthday
soon, even that comfort was denied me.

Presently a tall, dark figure loomed up
through the mist, coming down the pathway
leading across the mowing at the back of the
house. At first I thought I was mistaken,
for sometimes I could see it, and then a vio-
lent gust of wind and rain would blot it out,
but soon it drew nearer, and I made out old
Ben, coming at his accustomed long stride.
In another minute he was hurrying up the

One's Own Back Door-yard 171

steps of the back porch, the rain fairly stream-
ing down his long rubber coat.

He was laughing and chuckling and looked
the very picture of merriment.

" Isn't it an awful shame, Ben? " I began.
" This nasty old rain has spoiled all our fun,
and now we can't take the trip to the pond."

" Fiddlesticks, boy. Yes, we can. Why,
I expect to go next Saturday. You needn't
go along unless you want to, but I propose to
go."

" I almost know it will rain and be another
horrid day just like this one," I said. " Isn't
it an awful shame that it rains to-day, Ben? "

" Well, no, Harry, I can't positively say
that it is, if you want me to tell the ' honest-
Injun-truth.' You see there are a great
many people in the world and it is awful hard
for God to suit them all at the same time.
The poor farmers, who raise all the good
things for us to eat, have been wishing for
rain for weeks. Everything was gettin' shriv-
eled up; crops were all spilin'. If this state
of affairs had kept up much longer why we

172 Trails to Woods and Waters

wouldn't had any crops at all. All the trees
and flowers looked pathetic and droopin', just
as though they had lost their best friend, and
really they had.

" So you see there are lots of people and
things to consider. Maybe, this morning,
when the sun came up, God saw how shriveled
things were, and how discouraged the farmers
all looked, and He said to Himself, * I guess
I had better have a rain to-day ; a good hard
one, and see if it won't freshen things up a
bit.' Then maybe He said, ' There are old
Ben and Harry, they want to go to the pond
fishing to-day. Now, if it rains, they can't
go. What shall I do? '

" Don't you see, Harry, that there were
hundreds and hundreds of farmers who
wanted it to rain and only you and I who
didn't, so God would have to suit the greater
number."

Ben's queer picture of God trying to suit
all the people at once made me smile, even
though I was greatly disappointed. He al-
ways had such a bright way of looking at

One's Own Back Door-yard 173

things. No matter how bad a thing was, old
Ben could always find some good way of ex-
plaining it, and of getting sunshine out of it.

" You are a funny fellow to always make
things look good when they are really bad,"
I said. " How do you think all these queer
thoughts?"

" Well, boy," said the old man, patting me
affectionately on the head, " it is this way. I
have lived a long time compared with you,
and a man can't spend seventy years in this
beautiful old world without doing a pile of
thinking.

" It seems to me the more I consider how
wonderfully the world is made, how all the
plants and animals are fed, and protected,
and how even the smallest things are made as
carefully as though they had been mountains,
when I get to thinking about these things it
makes me feel that there is a wise and won-
derful power behind all. So I know that all
rainy days must be good and the very best
thing in their place. Now, I will take off my
coat and we will set right down here on the

174 Trails to Woods and Waters

old back porch and have the finest kind of a
time seeing things." '

" Seeing things ! " I gasped in astonish-
ment. Then the funny side of the proposi-
tion came over me and I laughed aloud.

" I know you are a great fellow to see
things, Ben," I said at last, " but what can we
see from here? Are you joking? "

" It is no joke at all, Harry," replied my
friend seriously, " I mean every word of it.
We will have a fine time seeing things. I
never yet got tucked into any corner in the
world where I could not see something mighty
interesting.

" Now, Harry," he continued, seating him-
self in an old wooden-bottomed chair, and
tilting it back against the wall for comfort,
" our field of observation is the back porch
and just a few feet outside. Now, what do
you make of it? "

"A wet slippery floor, some morning-glory
vines, and, that's all, just a horrid place," I
answered, " but it isn't quite as bad as it was
before you came, Ben."

One's Own Back Door-yard 175

" Guess your woodsman's specks are rather
dim this morning," replied Ben with a merry
twinkle in his eye. " Perhaps it has rained
on them. Guess you will have to rub them
up, boy. Try again; I can see lots of inter-
esting things besides those you have men-
tioned. All you have seen is just the frame
to the picture. What a sorry world this
would be if people looked only at the frames,
and let all its beautiful pictures go unno-
ticed!"

I looked carefully up and down the floor
boards, peering into all the cracks, while old
Ben tried to look away and keep from laugh-
ing.

Finally I gave it up, and returned to my
first assertion that it was a dull, stupid place
with nothing interesting in it.

Ben laughed. " Well, Harry, suppose I
just set the ball to rolling. I can see a little
creature that can make a morsel for you that
will fairly make your mouth water. One of
the most wonderful little things that God ever
made. It and its kind know all the secrets of

176 Trails to Woods and Waters

the flowers, and the blossoms yield up their
very sweetest nectar for them. Many of the
flowers and trees could not bear fruit at all if
it was not for them. They live in a kingdom
and have a wonderful queen who lays over
half a million eggs in her short life of a few
years. Look at the honey-bee, Harry, just
crawling out of that morning-glory trumpet.
Now, there is a study for you ; something that
you might read about a whole lifetime and
then not find out all there is to learn."

I looked at the particular trumpet indi-
cated and saw a very ordinary honey-bee,
with three golden bands running across her
abdomen. She was just coming out of the
trumpet and was shaking the wet from her
wings.

" Probably got caught in there when the
rain came up and so thought she would wait
inside until it was over," said Ben. " A very
wise decision. When it lets up a little, I pre-
sume she will go home."

" Where is her home? " I asked, for I had
already become interested in this three-

One's Own Back Door-yard 177

banded rogue who made so free with the
flowers.

" Perhaps it is a little white house, that
stands in a row of little white houses, on bee
street," replied my friend, " or maybe it is a
bee-tree two or three miles from here. But,
in either case, she will not waste any time in
getting home once she has started.

" When she fairly gets her bearings she will
fly home as straight as an old crow will make
for the rookery, and that has come to be a
proverb.'"

" How can she tell which way to go if she
cannot see her home? " I asked. " She has
no road to travel."

" No, she does not do it that way," replied
Ben. " Many of the animals and birds, and
even the small insects have a sense of direc-
tion, a kind of compass in their heads that will
always tell them which is the way home. No
matter how dark it is or how rough the way,
this instinct never fails.

" If a man is lost in the woods or on the
prairies, his horse knows the way home a

178 Trails to Woods and Waters

great deal better than he does, and if he is a
wise man he will give his faithful steed the
rein and let him take his master home.

" A dog never gets lost in the woods, and
a cat can always find her way back to the old
home when she has been moved. We humans
don't know it all, Harry, and in some ways we
are inferior in wisdom to God's lesser crea-
tures."

" What has the bee been doing in the morn-
ing-glory blossom? " I asked.

" She's been after honey," replied the old
man. " The flowers all know her and love
her too, I reckon, although she takes their
very heart's secret from them.

" This is the way she does it. She crawls
away down into the trumpet until she gets
where the honey is, then she licks it out with
her little tongue, and puts it away in her
honey stomach. That is a small stomach just
in front of her real stomach. The sweet will
stay in there until it is partly digested, and
then it will be ready to put in the comb, that
perhaps she made yesterday to hold the

One's Own Back Door-yard 179

honey. So all the honey that we get is partly
digested, and that is why sick people can eat
it."

" How many are there in the little white
house? " I asked.

" That depends," replied Ben. " Perhaps
there are fifty or seventy-five thousand, if it is
a very large swarm, or maybe there are only
ten or fifteen thousand. But there are as
many bees in a hive as there are people in a
good-sized city, so you see it is quite a
family."

" What do they all do? " I asked.

"Different things," replied Ben. "The
queen lays eggs and her duty is to keep laying
eggs so that the hive shall keep up its num-
bers. You see, Harry, an ordinary bee lives
only sixty or ninety days, so the queen must
be diligent to keep their numbers good. In
the autumn there are no bees left in the hive
that were there in the spring, except the
queen. They are all dead and new ones have
taken their places.

" So the queen lays eggs. The workers

180 Trails to Woods and Waters

who are her daughters gather honey, and
make combs in which to store it.

" The drones are the queen's sons, and they
do nothing but live on the honey that the
daughters gather.

" But all the honey-bees do not live in the
little white house. Many of them live in bee-
trees in the deep woods, where they store up
hundreds of pounds of honey. It is great
fun to hunt for a bee-tree."

" Let's go some day, Ben," I cried, all ex-
citement.

" All right, boy, I intended to take you
some time ; but I guess we will not go to-day.

" Now that was pretty good for one morn-
ing-glory trumpet, Harry. Let's see what
else there is here on the old back porch."

" This rotten plank is full of ants," I said,
rather indifferently.

" Good, boy, good," cried Ben, slapping me
on the shoulder. " Now you are getting your
woodsman's specks rubbed up a bit. Per-
haps I shall make a woodsman of you after
all.

One's Own Back Door-yard 181

" Well, ants are just about as wonderful as
bees, only I don't love 'em as I do the bees,
because they are not as useful, but they are
mighty smart just the same.

" Did you ever imagine when you see a
large ant-hill in the pasture that in that
mound is a great republic like the United
States? "

" No," I gasped in astonishment, " tell me
about it."

" Well, long before God made man, He
made bees and ants. Long before He set
Adam and Eve in the garden and told them
to be good, ants and bees were running king-
doms and republics.

" The ants not only have a government
with a president, but they also have a stand-
ing army, and they fight battles with other
ant-hills — have spies and scouts and real bat-
tles. They build roads and bridges, and
move heavy obstacles that are in their way.
They do things that, considering their size,
would make the building of Brooklyn bridge
by men seem like child's play.

1 82 Trails to Woods and Waters

"They are mighty funny little creatures.
They can bite too. If you don't believe it
just step on an ant-hill some time and let
about a thousand of them run up your leg.

" Don't see anything else about the old
porch, do you, Harry? " continued Ben.

I peeked into all the cracks and crannies,
but could see nothing.

" I can see a mighty interesting old chap
in the dirt just underneath the piazza," said
Ben, pointing almost under my bare feet.
" If he had been a bear he might have bitten
you."

I strained my eyes but could see nothing.

" It is just one of nature's little tricks,
boy," said Ben. " He is what is called pro-
tectively colored. That is, his clothes just
match his surroundings."

He was lying partly buried in the dirt, and
even when Ben pointed him out to me, I could
not see him until we poked him with a stick,
and made him disclose himself.

" He is a great hider, is Bufo, the hop-
toad," continued Ben, " and a most useful

One's Own Back Door-yard 183

little creature. Some people used to think he
had a precious jewel in his head, which, of
course, is not so, but he is a precious jewel
himself to the farmer, for he catches many
injurious worms and bugs and helps to save
the farmer's crops from destruction. We
could not get along without him, for all he is
an ugly looking fellow.

" His tongue is fastened at the other end
from what yours is, Harry, so all he has to do
when he sees a fly is to flick it out, and as his
tongue is sticky, like fly paper, Mr. Fly is
caught before he knows it.

" Bufo is quite a musician too. In the
spring when the bullfrogs and the hylas are
singing, you will hear him down by the pool.
He puffs out his throat until you would think
it must burst, and then sends forth a shrill
tremulous note, that can be heard for a long
distance.

" A family of toads under the front door-
step is as good as a circus any evening."

" Where in the world did you learn all
these things, Ben? " I asked in astonishment,

184 Trails to Woods and Waters

for it seemed to me that Ben could make a
story of almost anything that crawled, crept,
ran, or flew.

" Well, Harry," he replied, " most of it I
picked up. I have always kept my eyes open,
which is a very necessary thing to do if one
wants to see all that is going on in God's busy
world. I see things and then I think about
them, that is necessary too. If a man or a
boy will do this he can have a first-rate time
even in his own back door-yard."

CHAPTER X
A WARY MOTHER

CHAPTER X

A Wary Mother

IT was fence-mending time in the country,
and Ben and I were on our way to the pasture
land to look after a half-mile of brush fence
that ran through the deep pine and hemlock
woods.

It was always a red letter day for me when
old Ben came to the farm to work for my
father.

Fence-mending time in New England is
about the first of May, or perhaps a little
earlier, if the farmer is forehanded; so, you
see, it was just the time of year to see things
in the deep woods, if one had the eyes to see
them.

All the world seemed joyous this glorious
May morning, and it made me glad just to
hear the pleasant sounds about me.

The young stock were lowing, and the lit-
tle lambs were frisking and bleating. The

1 88 Trails to Woods and Waters

pigeons were cooing, and the rooster was
crowing as though he would split his throat,
but his real object was to crow so loud that
his rival could hear him a quarter of a mile
away.

The birds were all busy flying to and fro
with the most important air, as it was nest
building time.

Really there was some excuse for their
seeming importance. Most of the human
family build a new house once in a lifetime,
but many of the birds build a new one each
spring.

Just as old Ben and I got over the stone
wall in the pasture, we heard a cock partridge
drumming, which is always an interesting
sound in the spring, for then it means some-
thing.

" I know that old fellow," said Ben. " His
drumming log isn't very far from the fence;
perhaps we will get a glimpse of him. He is
a very old cock and I have seen him drum-
ming several times. I know he is old because
the feathers on his legs grow down very low.

A Wary Mother 189

In fact, he almost looks as though he had on
pantalets and you never see any but an old
bird with feathers like that."

When we got within about ten rods of the
drumming log we crept forward carefully,
Ben leading the way and only going forward
while the cock was drumming and keeping
perfectly still when he stopped.

This is the only way in which one can get
very close to a drumming cock, as they seem
to stop and listen between acts, to see that all
is well.

Finally, we got up very close to the log,
within fifty feet perhaps, when Ben suddenly
motioned to me to come forward. We al*
ways spoke in signs in the woods, just as the
Indians do; this does not disturb the creature
watched.

I crept forward as lightly as I could and
peered down between two tree trunks in the
direction that Ben indicated with his fin-
ger.

The log was in a rather open spot and to
my great surprise I saw two cock partridges

190 Trails to Woods and Waters

standing upon it, one at either end, with their
heads down and facing each other in the most
belligerent attitude.

Their feathers were all bristled up and they
looked about twice their ordinary size.

Presently the old cock, with the feathers
low down on his legs, sprang at his antagonist
and buffeted him off the log. The quarrel
was evidently over the log; or, rather, the fe-
male partridge whose admiration and love
were won by the cock who drummed here, so
there was really a good deal at stake.

The younger cock did not take the buffet
that sent him to the ground kindly, for he at
once sprang back and dealt the old cock such
a blow with beak and wings, that the real
owner of the log was dislodged from his
perch.

This was the signal for a battle royal.
Such a battle as makes the fighting of the or-
dinary barnyard fowl seem tame enough.
The partridge is much quicker and stronger
for its size than any domestic fowl. Where
the slower domestic fowl would strike once

A Wary Mother 191

these lightning-like birds struck twice and the
buffet of their wings sounded like the beating
of a carpet.

Up and down they went, sometimes fight-
ing on the log and sometimes on the ground.
Sometimes meeting on the ground and some-
times in mid-air, as towards the latter part of
the battle each tried to pull feathers from his
rival's breast.

Flash, flash, slap, slap, went their wings.

All through the fight the older cock seemed
to have the better of it. Once he bowled his
rival over and we thought he was vanquished,
but the youngster was game and he soon went
back to the fight.

The female partridge, sitting somewhere
near the log, was evidently to his liking.
Perhaps the old cock had gotten his sweet-
heart away from him; certainly he battled
bravely.

At last his powerful rival dealt him a ter-
rible blow that left him motionless under the
bushes and the old cock ran to him and began
pecking at his head.

192 Trails to Woods and Waters

" Here, stop, you'll kill him," shouted Ben,
starting to the assistance of the vanquished
cock.

At the sound of his voice the victorious cock
rose in air with a roar of wings and went sail-
ing down the aisles of the May woods with the
speed of an express train.

We went to where the apparently lifeless
partridge lay, and Ben picked him up. He
did not even flutter and to my untutored
mind he was stone dead.

" Guess he won't fight any more, Ben," I
said, feeling bad for the poor bird.

"His heart still flutters," replied Ben.
" We'll take him down to the brook and
sprinkle a little water on him, and I guess
he will be as good as new, but it will rather
astonish him when he comes to, to see what
company he is keeping."

So we took the apparently lifeless bird to
the spring and Ben sprinkled his head with
water and then laid him on the grass to see
what would happen.

After a few minutes he fluttered feebly and

A Wary Mother 193

then stood up. His eyes looked dazed and he
did not seem really to know just where he
was; then a furtive look came into them and
he squatted low on the ground and watched us
intently.

Suddenly there was a roar of wings just
over my head that made me duck and clutch
the top of my head with both hands. I
looked on the ground and my cock partridge
was gone.

" Where is he, Ben? " I asked.

" There," replied Ben with a grin, " and
pretty lively for a dead bird, too."

I looked where Ben indicated, and saw the
cock sailing away, already nearly out of sight
in the distant cover.

" I guess he has had all he will want of old
feather-legs," said Ben, with a chuckle. " He
ought to have known better. Did you notice
his markings, Harry? He was a beautiful
bird, with copper-colored markings and a red-
dish ruff. We don't see partridges marked
like him often in these parts.

" There'll be a nest somewhere near that

1 94 Trails to Woods and Waters

drumming log. We'll keep our eyes open
and see if we can find it. The partridge's
drumming is a part of his courtship and early
married life. One can usually find the nest
within five or ten rods of the log. The par-
tridge drums for his mate, just as the wood-
pecker does, but the female partridge does not
answer as does the female woodpecker. Mrs.
Partridge is more modest than that. Now I
guess we had better attend to our fence mend-
ing."

The following day we searched for the nest,
but at first were unsuccessful in finding it.

" You see," said Ben, when we had about
given up the search, " the female partridge
will lie very close when she is on the nest, and
you have nearly to run over her before she
flies ; she hates to disclose the precious spot.

" Sometimes it is in a brush heap, and
sometimes under the edge of an old log, but it
is always hidden wonderfully well. Mrs.
Partridge does not want the red squirrel to
find it and eat her eggs. It would be still
worse to have the weasel find the nest. Now

A Wary Mother 195

the top of that old fallen spruce would be a
likely place; try it, Harry."

I went to the spruce top and peered in but
could see nothing; then I struck with my axe
helve, and the female partridge ran quickly
from the underbrush, and flew away into the
deep woods.

" There, what did I tell you? " exclaimed
Ben exultantly. " Now let's see what we can
find."

We poked away the thick branches and
found the nest, with eight eggs in it.

" She hasr/t got done laying yet," said
Ben. " She will have anywhere from ten to
fifteen eggs when she has finished."

" Ben," I said, all excitement, " I have got
a plan; let's wait until she has set upon the
eggs for a while and when they are almost
ready to hatch let's put my bantam on the
eggs and let her finish hatching them, and see
if the partridge chicks won't claim her for
their mother and we will have a brood of
young partridges to raise."

" How shall we keep Mrs. Partridge from

196 Trails to Woods and Waters

pounding the life out of Seebright when we
are gone? " asked Ben. " It won't do to
move the eggs."

" We can stake down some wire netting
over the nest and make it tight enough so not
even a weasel could get in."

" Quite a plan, Harry, quite a plan," re-
plied Ben. " I believe I will try it. I'd be
curious to see how it would work myself."

About three weeks later one evening at
dusk old Ben and I might have been seen
hurrying to the woods. I had Seebright un-
der my coat and she was clucking and scold-
ing away vigorously. Ben was carrying a
large roll of fine wire netting and some stakes
that he had made for the purpose.

" It's a mean trick," he said as we climbed
over the wall, " but I am mighty curious to
see how it will come out."

Mrs. Partridge was very loath to leave her
nest, for she knew as well as we did that it
was nearly time for her eggs to hatch. So
she quitted and fluttered about for a time,
trying every stratagem known to mother

A Wary Mother 197

partridges to get us to chase her away from
the vicinity of her precious nest. Finally she
flew away and we showed Seebright the nest
with twelve warm eggs in it.

The little bantam seemed delighted with
our discovery, and she settled down upon the
eggs just as though it had been her own nest
and not that of her wild kindred.

Ben and I then staked the netting down
carefully about her, making a fine netted
coop ; not even a weasel could have gotten her
when we had finished.

We then put in some corn and a dish of
water and left her to finish hatching the
young partridges.

The following afternoon we went to the
woods to see how Seebright was getting
along. We had barely entered the forest and
were still quite a distance from the nest when
we heard the quick clucking and cries of
" quit, quit," that the mother partridge al-
ways uses when she is trying to hide her
young.

" Quick, Harry, quick," cried Ben, and we

198 Trails to Woods and Waters

hurried forward. We were just in time to
see a bevy of tiny partridges scurrying in
every direction, while the mother was flutter-
ing about upon the ground in great agony.
I sprang forward to catch her, but she slipped
from my grasp. Then I remembered some-
thing that had happened once before when
Ben and I discovered a brood of partridge
chicks, and did not try further to catch her.
Presently she flew away and I turned to see
what Ben was doing.

He was sitting on a log laughing and I
could see that he was immensely pleased about
something.

I did not think that he was laughing at
my trying to catch the lame mother par-
tridge, for I had only been fooled for a min-
ute.

" Well, well, Harry, that old partridge has
completely whipped us at our own game.
Never heard of anything quite so slick in my
whole life."

" I know she has hidden all her chicks and
gotten away herself," I answered, " but what

A Wary Mother 199

of that; let's go and see how Seebright and
the eggs are coming on."

" Seebright and the eggs ! " exclaimed Ben
chuckling. " She hasn't any eggs. These
are her eggs hiding here in the brake."

I opened my mouth wide with astonish-
ment.

" Why, Ben, you don't mean that the eggs
have hatched and our partridge chicks are
gone, do you? "

" Just so," replied my companion. " I
know it just as well as though I had looked
under Seebright. Mrs. Partridge has beaten
us at our own game. When she found that
another was sitting on her eggs she was prob-
ably mighty put out, but finding she could do
nothing, she just hung about to see how it
would all end. Maybe she had a plan in her
wise head. I can't just say as to that. You
see the eggs were probably further along than
we imagined and they hatched last night.
When they were all hatched, Mrs. Partridge
coolly called the chicks away from Seebright
through the meshes of the wire-netting and

2oo Trails to Woods and Waters

walked off with the whole brood, without as
much as saying ' Thank you for your trouble,
Seebright.' "

It was all just as Ben had supposed. We
found the nest empty, and Seebright angrily
bristling and clucking under the netting.

I took her out and put her under my coat,
but she would not be comforted. She consid-
ered that we had played a mean trick on her
and she pecked savagely at me.

Ben rolled up the netting and we trudged
homeward, my companion philosophizing as
we went. He was greatly pleased at the turn
of affairs, but I was terribly disappointed, for
I had planned an elaborate partridge farm
from which I would reap great riches.

" I tell you what, Harry, there isn't much
use trying to get ahead of nature and her wild
creatures. If you do get one of them in a
trap or pitfall, they are so helpless and scorn-
ful of you that it takes all the fun out of the
victory.

" But usually they get the best of us just
as Mrs. Partridge did. The partridge is a

A Wary Mother 201

fine, self-reliant bird. The chicks will run
and almost fly before their feathers fairly get
dry. In twenty-four hours they are hunting
for their own living. What their mother
don't know about bringing up chicks isn't
worth knowing. She gives them their dust
bath and their rotten wood bath, and keeps
them free from nits and lice. She knows
what is good for the grub in the head and for
all the ailments that chicks are heir to. She
varies their diet with berries, bugs, insects,
grasshoppers, crickets and lots of other dain-
ties, and when they need physic she knows
where the berries that they want grow.

" She covers them with her wings when
they are chicks and when they are partly
grown she teaches them her store of partridge
wisdom, that they may take care of them-
selves when the brood breaks up. They learn
partly from precept and partly from imita-
tion, just as all the young things in the wil-
derness do.

" Night after night they huddle close to-
gether, each greeting the last comer as they

202 Trails to Woods and Waters

gather, with soft loving clucks and cheets.
The vigilant mother shields them from the
hawk, the owl, the fox, the weasel and the
snare.

" Perhaps it is the hunter that finally
breaks up this happy family, or perhaps it is
the autumn madness that always attacks the
young birds in November. Finally they all
go their several ways and each fights the bat-
tle of existence for himself.

" Here we are, Harry, at your gate.
Good-night."

CHAPTER XI
A LIVELY BEE HUNT

CHAPTER XI
A Lively Bee Hunt

ONE Saturday afternoon in June about
two months after our talk about bees, old Ben
came into the yard wearing a most ridiculous-
looking thing on his head.

It was about as large as a good-sized water
pail, and came down over his head and rested
on his shoulders. It was made from a frame-
work of wire, covered with mosquito netting.'
The whole protected the face entirely, but
from what, I did not just know.

" Why, Ben, what kind of a thing do you
call that? " I asked. " Looks as though you
had a giant's hat on and it was about twice too
large for you."

" That's a « veil,' " replied Ben, " and I
have brought along one for you; I made it
this morning. Let's see how it fits."

206 Trails to Woods and Waters

So I took off my hat and slipped the
queerly-shaped thing over my head, until it
rested on my shoulders just as Ben's did. It
was a most interesting headgear, and I was
delighted with it.

" What is it for, Ben? " I asked.

Ben laughed. " It is to keep off bees. We
are going bee-hunting, Harry, and so I have
brought along these bee-veils. Although we
may not have any use for them, I thought it
would be well for us to have them along."

I was all excitement to go, and we soon set
off across the fields, Ben leading the way as
usual. Besides the bee-veils Ben carried a
small box with a slide cover, which could be
opened readily.

Inside the box was some honey, and Ben
explained to me that this was to decoy the
bees into the box, where they would load up
with honey. When released they would at
once set off for their tree in a bee-line, to store
the honey.

I was the first to discover a bee, and pointed
it out to Ben witt great excitement.

A Lively Bee Hunt 207

"Pooh, Harry, that's only a drone,"
said the old man contemptuously. " He
wouldn't be any better than a fly. He would
just eat up our honey and then fly away with-
out as much as saying ' thank you/ He
wouldn't go back to the tree, but would go
dawdling about anywhere he happened to
like. Drones aren't any use in a bee hunt.
You can tell them by the deep booming sound
of their wings. They fly much more heavily
than the workers. They are also slightly
larger. Ah, here comes a worker."

Old Ben drew the slide of his small box
and stood perfectly still, while the honey-bee
hummed about our heads. " She's smelled
it; they have great noses," he explained. " It
is by scent that the guards at the door of
each hive tell whether a bee belongs to their
hive or not and decide whether they will let
her in. Imagine you and me having to tell
all our relatives by the sense of smell ! "

After hunting about for a few seconds, the
bee entered our box and Ben shut the slide
and left her to take her fill.

208 Trails to Woods and Waters

" She'll be ready to make a bee-line for
home in a few minutes," he said. " It is
mighty queer how all these little creatures
know the way home. The homing pigeon's
instinct is wonderful. After they have been
trained these birds will fly hundreds and even
a thousand miles home, bringing a message to
some beleaguered fort, or from some starving
villagers in a dreary, desolate land. The
homing pigeons are most useful creatures in
time of war. They have been used ever since
Noah let the dove go from the ark."

I smiled and old Ben continued:

" Harry, think of this. Sometimes they
will take one of these little birds hundreds of
miles out to sea on a ship, and then toss it up
into the air to seek its home.

" All about in every direction, as far as the
eye can reach, is nothing but the rolling sea,
endless and terrible. If the poor pigeon did
not fly in the right direction, it might have to
fly and fly, on and on, until it dropped ex-
hausted into the sea.

" But the pigeon has a God-given instinct,

A Lively Bee Hunt 209

that is better than man's compass. Some
pigeon breeders say that this instinct is
located in the large bunches about the ears,
for the best homing pigeons are the breeds
with the largest bunches.

" Well, that pigeon set adrift above old
ocean doesn't need any landmarks. He just
circles about two or three times until some-
thing inside him tells him which way to point
his bill and then he starts, straight as an arrow
he goes, and never once turns to right or left
until he drops into the home-cote."

While Ben had been talking he had re-
leased the captive bee, which had flown home.

When she returned she brought three more
bees with her, all of whom we made captive.

" I guess we have got bees enough by this
time and some of them ought to be pretty well
loaded up. I'll let out one. Now get your
eye on it when it leaves the box and when you
see what direction it is going just leg it and
chase it clean home."

If there was any twinkle in Ben's eye when
he said these words I did not notice it. So

2io Trails to Woods and Waters

when the bee, laden with sweets, for which it
had not labored, came forth, circled about for
a few seconds and then started across the
fields in a line straight as a telephone wire, I
started after it at my best pace.

" Leg it, leg it, Harry," shouted my com-
panion. " I am afraid she is going to get
away from you."

I doubled my efforts, but in vain, for the-
speck in the air above me grew smaller and
smaller and just as I lost it I heard Ben shout,
" Look out," but his cry came too late.

Without the slightest warning I plunged
head first into the meadow ditch.

My bee-veil was jammed down on to my
head and crushed out of shape, and I was
covered with mud and water.

" Too bad, Harry, too bad," said Ben, help-
ing me out a minute later. " I guess you're
not hurt much. I shouted for you to look
out, but you were so hard after that bee that
you didn't hear me.

" That is the trouble with chasing bees pell-
mell crosslots. You want to be cross-eyed,

A Lively Bee Hunt 2 1 1

and have one eye look down, and the other
up. If you keep your eyes on the bee, you
go into a hole, and if you look down you lose
your bee. It's real inconsiderate of bees not
to travel the highways when they start for
home.

" Now we will follow along in the direction
that this bee took for thirty or forty rods, and
then we will let out another and that one will
continue the trail for us. You see it is a kind
of relay race."

When we let out the second bee I let Ben
lead off in the chase after it, while I followed
carefully behind.

As much as I loved Ben I was rather in
hopes that he would fall into a ditch, or trip
on a stick so that I could laugh, but he did
not.

I do not know how he managed it, but he
always seemed to find the smooth places.

This time we followed the bee much farther
than we did the first, but it was finally
lost.

" There isn't much use of you and me try-

212 Trails to Woods and Waters

ing to make sixty miles an hour, Harry," said
Ben at the end of a longer chase than usual,
after which we both stood panting.

" That is about what a bee makes when she
is lining it out for home. Last year they
raced some bees with carrier pigeons, and the
bees came in ahead. They sprinkled dust on
their wings so they could be sure that it was
the same bees that won out."

The eight or ten bees that we had captured
took us about a mile and near to the deep
woods.

The last one that we let out flew back in
just the opposite direction from that which
the other bees had taken.

" We have gone past the tree," said Ben,
" and it can't be a great way off."

Ben again opened the box containing
honey, and we sat down upon a knoll to wait
for developments.

In the course of a minute or two a bee came
for the sweet which she had evidently smelled.

When she had eaten her fill she did not
circle about as the bees had done when we first

A Lively Bee Hunt 213

started out, but made a straight line for the
woods.

Ben did not chase her but sat still and
waited for another. Soon it came, and an-
other and another, until a dozen had filled
themselves at the box.

" Do you see that old broken-topped maple
at the edge of the woods? " asked Ben, point-
ing out the tree in question.

" Well, that is the bee-tree. I have had
my eye on it for some time, and they all fly
for it as straight as a string.

" Here comes another. Now we will keep
this one and see what she will tell us."

So we made a captive of the bee and then
went up close to the maple stub. Finally
Ben let the prisoner go, and it flew straight
to the maple and disappeared inside through
a deep crack in the trunk.

" That settles it," said Ben, " this is our
bee-tree.

" Now you gather a lot of twigs and dry
sticks and we will see what virtue there is in
a little smoke. Long before bees ever had

214 Trails to Woods and Waters

reason to fear man they feared smoke. It
was the forest fires of pre-historic times that
taught the bee fear of smoke. Smoke seems
to paralyze and stupefy the swarm, and a few
whiffs are worth a good deal when you are
after honey."

So I gathered a large pile of fagots, and
we soon had a bright blaze going. Then Ben
put on rotten wood and grass to make it
smudge, and we soon had a great column of
smoke pouring into the tree.

At first the bees came out in a black, angry
cloud, and I fled to a safe distance, but Ben
did not seem to mind them. Finally the
smoke drove them all into the tree, and Ben
began to cut it down.

The outer shell of the old stub was very
hard and it seemed to me that Ben never
would get it down. At last, without the
slightest warning, it fell with a mighty crash,
breaking open at the crack where we had seen
the bees enter.

I never would have believed that such small
creatures as bees could have made such a

A Lively Bee Hunt 2 1 5

roaring with their wings as that swarm
made when it poured forth in a black cloud,
to avenge itself upon the destroyers of its
home.

In an instant the air about us was black
with them.

I thrust my hands into my pockets to pro-
tect them and ran pell-mell into a thick
growth of scrub hemlock which was near at
hand.

My bee-veil protected my face and neck
nicely, but some of the sharp bayonets of this
infuriated army pricked the skin on my
wrists, and one went up my pants leg on a
voyage of discovery.

I yelled with pain and fought them des-
perately.

I was lucky enough to get off with four or
five stings, but these made my wrists swell
badly.

When the bees at last left me, and I peeped
out of the bushes to see how it fared with old
Ben, I saw, to my great astonishment, that
he was sitting on one end of the fallen log,

216 Trails to Woods and Waters

with a swarm of bees about him, but appar-
ently quite unconcerned.

" Run, Ben," I cried; " you will be stung to
death."

" They won't hurt me. I have handled the
little critters before. I am better protected
than you, for I have on a pair of gloves that
protect my wrists. I meant to have told you
to go farther back when the tree fell, but it
got ahead of me.

" We'll put some mud on those stings of
yours and it will soon cure them. That is the
remedy all the wild creatures use. But we
are well paid for our pains. There is a hun-
dred pounds of honey in this tree if there is
an ounce."

When the roaring of the angry swarm had
partially died down, I went nearer to see the
honey.

It was a most beautiful sight. Although
the comb had been considerably broken in the
fall, yet it still kept many of its fantastic
shapes.

Running up and down in the middle of the

A Lively Bee Hunt 217

cavity was a solid pillar of comb, eight or nine
inches in diameter, and that was fastened to
the inside of the cavity every foot or so, by
smaller braces of comb, filled with delicious
honey.

Ben said these braces were put in to steady
the main column, and keep it from falling.

We took out two large milk pails full of the
delicious sweet and left as much more in the
tree.

The following day we came back and got
the rest, but the swarm, which we also in-
tended to capture, had disappeared.

" They didn't want to trust themselves to
our mercies any longer," said Ben. " They
will find another hollow tree, and before the
frost has closed the late goldenrod and the
purple asters, they will have sweet enough
stored up to carry them through the cold
weather. If we had brought their house
down about their heads a month or two later,
they would probably have all perished.

" I always feel as mean as dirt when I take
away the honey that the poor bee has gathered

2 1 8 Trails to Woods and Waters

drop by drop, bringing some of it three miles
perhaps.

" If the bee labored so hard, it seems as
though she ought to have it. But man makes
all earth's creatures work for him, and some-
times he is not even grateful."

CHAPTER XII
THE SPECKLED HEIFER'S CALF

CHAPTER XII

The Speckled Heifer's Calf

THE speckled heifer was my very own, and
of course a wonderful cow. She had been
mine ever since she was a frisky spotted calf,
looking very much like a fawn.

I had taught her to drink milk from a
bucket and had tethered her out all the first
summer in the backyard. In fact, she was a
spoiled and petted calf, and that was probably
why she hid her own first calf when it was
born.

This was a great disappointment to me, as
I had hoped that the new calf would mate one
that I already had and make a pair of steers.

We knew well enough that the speckled
heifer had a calf somewhere in the great pas-
ture, but, where, was the question. The
heifer's bag was large, and her udders were
wet each morning when we found her quietly

222 Trails to Woods and Waters

feeding, as though her thoughts were upon
anything but calves.

I spent several days watching and spying
upon her, but with no success. As long as
I was in sight she would eat grass or lie in the
shade and chew her cud, but as soon as I got
interested in a bird's nest, or a berry patch she
was gone, and I would see no more of her that
day. We tried taking a dog into the pasture
in hopes of frightening her into fleeing to her
bossy, but the experiment was a failure.

The sight of the dog seemed to drive the
young cow almost frantic and to fill her with
blind, unreasonable rage. She charged the
poor dog, who was innocent of any evil to-
wards her, again and again, until at last the
bewildered canine stuck his tail between his
legs and ran out of the pasture. Then she
turned upon Ben and me.

Ben took refuge in a thicket, so she left
him, and came for me. At first I thought I
was not afraid of the speckled heifer; was she
not my own bossy and had I not petted her
ever since the day she was born? I called

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 223

" Bossy, Bossy," in my most persuasive tones5
but she came at me like a mad creature, forc-
ing me to shin up a small tree with all possible
speed.

When I had reached a safe limb I looked
for Ben, and discovered him peeping out of
the thicket, and laughing.

" Harry," he called, " that heifer has gone
stark mad for the moment and you and I had
better make ourselves scarce. She will be all
right again when she has had time to cool off.
Mother love is a queer instinct."

The most dangerous animal in the world is
an enraged mother who thinks her young are
threatened. When the speckled heifer had
gone away to feed in a different part of the
pasture, Ben and I slunk away just as the
poor dog had done, and left her to chew the
cud of reflection.

The following morning when we visited the
pasture a wonderful change had come over
the heifer. She stood at the bars bellowing
and moaning pitifully. Her eyes were large
and full of pain, her muzzle was covered with

224 Trails to Woods and Waters

foam, and her sides were wet with sweat. In
addition to this, there were deep scratches
upon her back and shoulders and she was
trembling as though with great fear.

When she saw us coming she redoubled her
lowing, and started off across the pasture at
a brisk trot.

" Something is up," said Ben. " She is
eager enough to show us where the calf is
now, but in my opinion it won't do any good,
for we will find it dead."

My grief and astonishment at this an-
nouncement were too great for words, so I
trotted along silently behind Ben, hoping
against hope that he would be mistaken for
once.

There was no sham or deceit about the
speckled heifer to-day and we had to go at a
brisk trot to keep up with her. She occasion-
ally looked back to see if we were following,
and seemed rather afraid that we would turn
back.

She led us straight to the deep woods and
in and out, among the thickets until we came

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 225

to a thick clump of spruce. These trees
stood so close together that their spreading
tops kept out the sunlight quite effectively
and a kind of twilight or gloom always
reigned beneath them.

There, in the deepest shadows, as though to
screen so sad a sight from the bright light of
day, lay the little bossy for which we had
searched so long and diligently. He was a
perfect beauty, as nature had designed him,
with a sleek, glossy coat, generously flecked
and dappled like his mother's, but, as we be-
held him, he was a pitiful sight.

His throat was horribly torn as though by
hungry fangs, his head and neck were badly
lacerated and he was besmeared with his own.
bright blood, and covered with blow-flies.
The ground about was trampled and blood-
stained, the ferns and underbrush were
broken and there was every evidence of a des-
perate struggle.

I was too grief-stricken to speak. Ben
was carefully noticing all the signs, as was
his Indian way. When he had examined the

226 Trails to Woods and Waters

wounds upon the dead calf carefully, and
noted all the hoof prints in the trampled forest
carpet, he fell to examining a near-by tree
trunk.

" Seems to me this tree trunk looks mighty
interesting, Harry," he exclaimed. "What
do you think about it? "

" Looks just like all the rest of the tree
trunks," I replied in disgust. It annoyed me
that Ben should think of such trifling things
as how tree trunks looked at a time like this.

" Come here, Harry," said he, " and let me
show you that it does not look just like all the
other tree trunks."

I followed Ben's finger carefully from
point to point, as he showed me where the
bark had been scratched and torn off. At
each of these points was a deep scar in the
bark, that showed the white wood beneath.
Finally Ben picked two soft gray hairs from
beneath a sliver of bark, and held them up for
my inspection.

" Look like cat hairs," I suggested.

" Mightily," replied Ben. " They are cat

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 227

hairs, and they came out of the coat of a wild-
cat."

" A wildcat," I exclaimed in astonishment,
at the same time looking up into the branches
overhead apprehensively; "where in the
world did it come from? "

" Oh, up on the mountain," replied Ben.
" There have been litters of bobcats raised on
the mountain off and on for several years,
but they don't often hunt so far from home.
The kittens must be quite cats by this time,
and so their mother has to hunt far and near
to satisfy them.

" It happened last evening, probably, at
about twilight. The great cats hunt in the
morning and evening. Sometimes they hunt
by moonlight, but rarely in broad daylight.

" Mrs. Bobcat probably came prowling
through the pasture in search of a gray rab-
bit and with no thought of calf. She is rather
dull colored this time of year, and is hardly
noticeable among the browns of the ferns and
the dried up weeds. A bobcat always sneaks
along like a gray shadow. She probably

228 Trails to Woods and Waters

came upon the calf in hiding when its mother
was feeding and pounced upon it, without
considering that there was a mother to reckon
with. There is where it was lying. Here
are the hoof prints where the poor calf
plunged about, probably with the cat upon
its back tearing at its throat. I presume
about that time it did some tall bleating and
Specky appeared on the scene.

" Then Mrs. Bobcat went up this tree. I
have already shown you the clawprints. The
cat had a rather close call, too, for here is a
scar where the heifer's horn has ripped the
bark off.

" This attack probably infuriated the cat
and she revenged herself by dropping on the
heifer's back. That is how she came to be so
clawed. Then the heifer lost her head and
lit out. The bobcat must have hopped off
when she had ridden a few rods, and come
back to finish the calf. The heifer must have
run clear down to the bars."

I opened both my eyes and mouth wide
with astonishment as Ben unfolded the story

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 229

of this little tragedy. A moment before the
whole thing had seemed an inscrutable
mystery, and here it was before our eyes as
plain as the page of a printed book.

" You piece things together just like a
block puzzle," I said. " I never could have
made it out at all, but it comes to you just
like a story."

" It all comes with time, Harry," replied
the old man. " Reading signs is a science,
just like astronomy, and has to be acquired.
We'll leave the calf just as he is, and to-mor-
row we will be around and have a wildcat
hunt."

" How are you going to manage it, Ben? "
I asked, for it seemed to me like rather
dangerous business. To my fancy the tops
of all the trees in the pasture were already
swarming with bobcats, which might drop
down upon our heads at any moment.

" Oh, I guess we will manage it all right,"
Ben replied. " I will borrow a fox hound
and you can go along with a pail of salt.
When the dog gets the cat good and tired by

230 Trails to Woods and Waters

running her, you can creep up and put the
salt on her tail. Then we can carry her home
in a bag."

Had it not been for the twinkle in Ben's
eye as he explained his plan, I should have
thought the program decidedly alarming.
Even as it was, I fairly lamed my neck look-
ing up into the treetops as we journeyed
home. I could see Ben watching me from
the corner of his eye and trying not to
smile.

The following morning, just when the pink
and saffron east had begun to glow and blush,
I was awakened by pebbles being tossed
against my bedroom window.

" Come, come, bobcat hunter, get up ! The
trail will get cold if we wait too long," called
a voice below.

When I joined Ben a few moments later
on the back porch, I found to my great sur-
prise that he was not armed, except with a
stout club, while in his other hand he carried
a small tin pail.

" Why, Ben, where is old Kentucky? " I

The Speckled Heifers Calf 231

asked, feeling almost afraid to start out
on this hunting trip without Ben's trusty
rifle.

" Oh, she is pretty heavy, and I thought I
had better leave her at home," drawled my
companion, " but I have brought along your
pail of salt. You see I rely mostly on you
and the salt."

A cold chill crept down my spine. Did
Ben really intend to have me go after the
cat with salt? If so, I would rather be ex-
cused.

I peeped into the pail and saw that it con-
tained sulphur, instead of salt, and so was
quite relieved.

The dew was very heavy and the grass was
full of cobwebs. Ben said it was a fine morn-
ing for " trailing."

We lost no time in getting to the woods,
but, before letting the hound go, we made a
complete circle of the spot where the dead
calf lay, keeping the dog on the leash.

The hound at once discovered the trail and
by the way he jumped about and whined to

232 Trails to Woods and Waters

be let loose, we knew that the track was very
fresh.

When we untied the cord from his collar,
the hound went off at a brisk pace, while its
long drawn owe-e-u-u-wowu-u wow-u-u
floated pleasantly back to us on the fresh
morning wind.

As soon as the hound was fairly off, we ran
to a commanding position about a third of the
way up the mountain.

For about five minutes the hound wound in
and out through the woods, then started for
the mountain at a lively clip. To my great
astonishment the dog ran by within a few rods
of us, and I hardly dared to breathe as the
chase drew near. I fully expected to see a
bobcat, about the size of a tiger, break into
the open.

" Why didn't we see it go by, Ben? " I
whispered.

" It went before we came up," replied Ben.
"Look there!"

At the moment he spoke, the long-drawn
notes of the fox hound changed to short

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 233

sharp barks, interspersed with excited
yelps.

I looked in the direction indicated and saw
a large gray animal, with a short tail and a
whiskery face, spring lightly upon the trunk
of a tree that had been partly blown down,
but which still stood at an angle lodged
against its fellows.

The cat scratched up the trunk for eight or
ten feet and then, in a frenzy of rage that
fairly made my hair stand on end, began tear-
ing the bark from the tree, at the same time
uttering a series of the most blood-curdling
screeches and snarls. The bark came down
in showers, the cat's claws flew so rapidly that
I could scarcely see them, while the screech-
ing seemed to my ears like the screaming of
a panther.

" Let's go home, Ben," I whispered be-
tween the chattering of my teeth. " She
might see us. You know we aren't
armed."

Ben laughed. " A bobcat won't fight un-
less she is cornered," he said. " You can go

234 Trails to Woods and Waters

home if you wish to, but you don't want to
leave me to be eaten alive, do you? "

I made no reply, though I felt anything
but comfortable. To tell the truth, at that
moment, I wished that I was at home in the
ten acre lot hoeing corn, or almost anywhere
else than where I was.

Presently the cat jumped from the tree
trunk and ran up the mountain side, the dog
following in hot haste.

Its long drawn owe-e-w-u had once more
changed to a quick bark varied by excited
yelps.

In five minutes more the barking had
changed to nothing but yelps and Ben cried,
" Good, the cat has either treed or holed.
Come on, Harry."

I was afraid to go and still more afraid to
stay behind, so I followed Ben, fairly treading
on his heels in my anxiety to keep as close to
my companion as possible.

We found the hound barking and scratch-
ing away excitedly at a fair-sized hole in a
great ledge.

UTTERING A SERIES OF MOST BLOOD CURDLING
SCREECHES AND SNARLS

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 235

Ben seemed much pleased at this discovery,
and, for final evidence that the cat had
holed, he picked a gray hair from the
edge of the rock and held it up for my inspec-
tion.

" Looks just like the one we saw on the
tree, Harry," he said. " Now you take the
pail and scramble into the hole and feed the
cat some brimstone, while I stay outside and
keep the male bobcat from coming in and dis-
turbing you."

" Not much," I said. " I haven't lost any
bobcat."

Ben brought a large flat stone and placed
it so that it would cover the entrance to the
den. Then he put the brimstone into the
mouth of the den and set fire to it, covering
the flat stone over with his coat, that none of
the fumes might escape.

For a minute or two, all was silent inside,
but finally we heard a coughing and scratch-
ing; then the cat made a sudden rush for the
entrance of the den.

I was terribly afraid that the stone would

236 Trails to Woods and Waters

be pushed aside, but Ben only gripped his
club and grinned at my alarm.

" Guess I better let him out, Harry," he
said at length. " It seems to be strangling
him," and to my horror he raised the stone so
as to make a small crack.

Ben had gone mad, but his folly should be
on his own head. I was not going to be food
for a bobcat.

Then Ben let go his hold on the stone and
it fell flat in front of the hole leaving the en-
trance free. With a yell of terror, I started
down the mountain side, not stopping even to
choose my footing, feeling that to break my
neck was better than to be clawed to ribbons.

Presently, I made a misstep and landed in
a heap at the bottom of a little gully. When
I picked myself up, I heard Ben calling to
me. " Come back, Harry," he hallooed.
" It's all over. I've killed the bobcat."

I clambered back but took care to recon-
noiter at a safe distance.

It was just as Ben had said. The big gray
cat lay dead at his feet. My courage came

The Speckled Heifer's Calf 237

back and I joined him and the hound at the
entrance of the den.

" How in the world did you kill it, Ben? "
I asked. " You didn't have any gun."

" I didn't need any," he replied. " It was
so stupefied that it wouldn't have known its
own grandmother. The brimstone did the
business. I simply knocked her on the head
when she came out."

It was a fine specimen of the bobcat, or bay
lynx, as it should really be called. Its coat
was long and silky, of a grayish tone, striped
and flecked with light brown. There were
several brown streaks along the back and
some tawny patches upon the sides. The
tail had several dark rings and was tipped
with black. The animal's long, sharp, white
claws sent a shiver down my back as I felt
them.

When we had carried the cat home, Ben
brought out the spring scales and, tying a
cord about the bobcat's hind legs, he hooked
in the scales and swung the splendid speci-
men clear of the ground. My eyes opened

238 Trails to Woods and Waters

wide as the indicator sprung down until it reg-
istered thirty-six pounds. After all, to have
such a fine skin as this was some compensa-
tion for the loss of the speckled heifer's calf.

CHAPTER XIII
CAMPING WITH OLD BEN

CHAPTER XIII

Camping With Old Ben

WHEN old Ben told me one August day
that we would go away into the great woods
for a week's camping out, and that we would
start within a day or two, my joy knew no
bounds.

I rolled upon the ground and shouted,
stood upon my head and turned hand-springs.
In fact, my joy was so great that I could not
find any kind of antic that quite expressed it.

This had long been a dream of delight
which I had thought almost too good ever
to come true, but here it was about to be
realized. " Which would you rather live in,
a tent or a shack? " asked Ben, when I had
become sufficiently calmed to consider details.

" A tent would be better in a rain-storm,
but a shack is mighty clean and pleasant, and
it smells so woodsy that I like it myself."

" Wouldn't we come home, Ben," I asked,

242 Trails to Woods and Waters

" if it rained very hard? " The idea of with-
standing a soaking rain-storm of a day or two
had never occurred to me until that moment.
To my notion, camping out was all sunshine,
warmth and sweet air.

" You might, if you want to, but you don't
think that I would come chasing home for a
shower, do you? You would make a healthy
guide, if you are afraid of getting your skin
wet."

" Oh, I am not afraid," I replied. " I had
never thought of stormy weather."

" Perhaps we had better take a tent and
make a shack, too," Ben suggested, " then we
will be fixed for almost any kind of weather."

The next two days were busy ones for us
both. We had to lay in a store of provisions
and overhaul the tent, which was an old one
that Ben had not used for several years.

I whittled an entire new lot of tent pegs
and felt quite like an Indian making a wig-
wam.

The third day after the expedition had been
proposed by Ben, we loaded our outfit into

Camping With Old Ben 243

the express wagon, and father drove us to
what was called the great woods. The latter
part of the journey had to be made through
pastures over an old wood road and I got out
and opened the gates or took down the bars
between the pastures.

We arrived upon the outskirts of this wil-
derness, as it seemed to me, in the afternoon
and at once set to work on our camp.

When we had unloaded our camp supplies,
and father and the old express wagon had
disappeared between the tree trunks, Ben
looked critically about us.

" This isn't just an ideal camping spot,"
he said, " but I guess it will have to do for
to-night. We haven't much time to look
about. We will just camp here to-night, and
to-morrow we can look around a bit. I'll put
up the tent, and you go and look for a spring.

" I usually find the spring first and then
pitch the tent near it, but I haven't time to
look for one to-night so we will trust to luck.

" See the top of those black ashes yonder,
you look over there. It is low ground, and

244 Trails to Woods and Waters

black ash always grows in a moist spot, so I
presume you will find either a small brook or
a spring somewhere near."

It was only a few rods away, almost within
sight of our prospective camp, so I hurried
off, glad that Ben had thought me capable of
doing an important part of getting our first
camp ready.

The black ashes proved to be on moist land,
as Ben had predicted, but there was no well
defined waterway, although the ground was
soft and swampy.

I circled about, quartering like a fox hound,
as Ben had taught me to do when looking for
anything in the woods, but no spring could I
find. I was loath to give up and be beaten in
this my first attempt in helping, but finally
was obliged to turn back without having dis-
covered water.

I had gone but a few rods from camp, or
so it seemed to me, and was quite sure of the
direction back to my starting point.

I hastened, for it was getting towards twi-
light, and long black shadows were already

Camping With Old Ben 245

creeping through the woods. Somehow it
seemed mighty lonesome away from Ben al-
though I would not have admitted it for the
world.

To my great astonishment I found that
camp did not lie just beyond some spruces as
I had thought, so I turned back to my start-
ing point and tried another direction, but that
seemed to lead me still deeper into the woods.

This would never do, I must be more care-
ful, so I went back to a clump of birches that
I had just started from, to try it over again,
but to my dismay they were not the same
birches, but a new clump.

How long and black the shadows were.
How still it was ; I must hurry. So I started
on a run in a new direction which I felt sure
would bring me to camp.

As soon as I began running, my alarm,
which had not been great up to that point,
increased tenfold, and I ran hither and thither,
like a deer, taking almost no note of land-
marks, as Ben had taught me to do, but trying
to cover as many rods as possible in the short-

246 Trails to Woods and Waters

est time. I scratched my hands and face in
the underbrush and twice went head over heels
upon the ground, but that was nothing.

In a short time I was back again at the
clump of birches, so I tried another direction,
but came right back to the same place.

It was terrible; did all the paths in the
woods lead right back to this spot? Then it
dawned upon me, I was running about in a
circle.

I had read of such cases in books. Of how
men became lost in the woods and ran around
and around in a circle until they dropped of
fatigue. Suddenly the sweet green woods
with its lengthening shadows seemed to
stretch out in every direction for a million
miles. I was the only living creature in all
that vast solitude unless it was filled with
bears, wolves, ghosts and hobgoblins. Such
a wiljd terror as I have never known before or
since seized me. My hair seemed to stand
up, my teeth chattered, my heart thumped
away at my ribs as though it would jump
through between them ; I seemed as small as a

Camping With Old Ben 247

sand flea in the middle of a desert. Never,
never as long as the world stood, would I be
able to get out of this hateful woods.

At last the silence and the terror of it grew
so upon me, that I lifted up my voice and
yelled like a savage. I did not give one shout
and then listen to see if it was answered but
bellowed at the top of my lungs, drawing my
breath with great sobs between the deafening
passages of my distress.

" Hello, that you, Harry? " cried a cheer-
ful voice that was so near to me that I ceased
my bellowing instantly.

Stifling my sobs as best I could and wiping
the tears from my cheeks with the back of my
hand, I rushed towards the spot from whence
came the voice.

" Have you treed a panther, Harry," he
asked, " or was it a pack of Apaches that I
just heard? "

" You needn't laugh at me," I blubbered.
" I have been lost. How did you find me so
quick? "

" I find you, I find you, boy ! Why, I

248 Trails to Woods and Waters

haven't been looking for you. I guess you
found yourself."

" Well, how come you away off here when
I left you making camp, miles away from
here? " I asked.

Ben very considerately stifled a laugh and
sneezed instead. Then motioned to me to
come to him.

" What do you call that? " he asked, point-
ing to the tent which was already up, although
it had been screened from me by some trees.

" That's the tent," I replied, feeling that
I was being made a fool of, " but you have
moved it. This isn't the place where we were
going to pitch it."

" The very same," replied Ben. " You've
lost your compass, Harry. You have been
clear around camp and come out on the op-
posite side from which you left, so everything
looks different.

" I heard you coming — sounded like a
moose, and I was just going to halloo to you
when you let out that yell. Those lungs of
yours can't be beaten.

Camping With Old Ben 249

" When you are in the woods you must
notice peculiarities in the trees and that will
keep you from getting lost. An old stump, a
spreading spruce, an ironwood tree, which is
not common, a hillock or a rock, all these
things are the guide-boards in the woods that
tell you the way back to camp.

" But you needn't feel cut up about it,
Harry. There isn't any danger that you will
get so lost in this county that I could not hear
you screech. Now you may look me up
some dead sticks for firewood, if you can."

Ben soon had a bright fire going between
three stones that he had arranged forming
three sides of a square.

" It is always a good plan to place stones
in that way, Harry," he said, " so your fire
won't keep tumbling down as fast as it burns.
If we were real savages, instead of make-be-
lieves, starting the fire would be quite a proc-
ess, and it might take half an hour. We
would have to use a flint and some tinder, and
it would be quite a trick."

I opened a can of salmon and it was soon

250 Trails to Woods and Waters

sending out a fine odor, as it sizzled in the
frying-pan.

" Seems as though I could eat it, frying-
pan and all," I said.

Ben laughed. "That's the tonic of the
woods," he said. " It beats any medicine that
I ever heard of for a poor appetite."

When Ben had fried some potatoes, and
made some coffee, our supper was ready.

We ate it upon a flat rock and I do not
think that anything that I ever ate at home
tasted so good.

After supper Ben cut two small hemlocks,
and dragged them near the tent, and we set
to work to strip them of all their small
branches and needles.

" There isn't anything in the world that
makes as soft and sweet a bed as hemlock
needles," explained Ben. " The odor is a
sort of sleeping potion, too ; it always does me
good to sleep on either hemlock or pine
needles."

When we had a large pile of the sweet,
springy hemlock plumes, we carried them into

Camping With Old Ben 251

the tent, and Ben showed me how to cover the
pile with the blanket, and then tuck the edges
under so that when we laid upon it, our bed
would not flatten out as much as it would
otherwise do. Our second blanket we put on
top of the first one, and Ben called it, " the
spread."

The bed now being ready, we went outside
and piled a lot of wood upon the camp fire
and sat down by it, to enjoy a real camp fire
talk.

" Of course, we don't need the fire to-night
to keep us warm," said Ben, " but it looks so
cheerful that I love to watch it burn and see
the pictures come and go. Besides it helps to
keep off the mosquitoes.

" A bright fire is good to cook with, but a
smudge keeps off mosquitoes. To make a
smudge, put on some punk, or, if you cannot
find that, a bunch of green grass."

I pulled a handful of grass and was aston-
ished to see how quickly a dark wreath of
smoke was curling up through the treetops.

" The Indians always used fires for sig-

252 Trails to Woods and Waters

rials," explained Ben, " and they could com-
municate several miles away by means of
them. This was their telegraph.

" What I enjoy about camping out," con-
tinued Ben, " is the wonderful mysterious life
all about us. The flowers, the trees, the
grass, the birds, the squirrels and all the four-
footed creatures. God made the trees to
shelter man and to rustle their leaves above
his head, and it is a pity that we have to cut
down so many of them. Why, Harry, there
is more wonder to me in an ant-hill than there
is in the whole city of New York. The
Brooklyn bridge and the tall blocks, and the
great churches are not nearly as hard for man
to build as it is for the ants to do some of the
things that they do.

" There is music, too, in the woods. The
glad trilling of birds, and the joyous chatter
of squirrels. The long roll of the cock par-
tridge, and the merry tattoo of the wood-
pecker. Then the wind and the waters are
always talking and the leaves are telling se-
crets overhead.

Camping With Old Ben 253

" There is always a mystery, too, in the
woods. Something to keep you guessing.
Was that pitter-patter in the leaves a red
squirrel, a chipmunk, or just a shy little
wood mouse? How quickly the ear learns to
distinguish the steady even trot of the fox, and
the hop of the rabbit, the rustle of a twig that
denotes a bird, and the bending of the bough
that tells you where a squirrel has just
sprung.

" The signs, the sights and the sounds of
the woods are among earth's sweetest se-
crets.

" Sometimes I think that I would like to
be the wood nymph and have charge of all
these furred and feathered creatures myself."

" Who is the wood nymph, Ben? " I asked.

" Oh, just a beautiful young lady who lives
in the woods, and looks out for all the wild
things and loves and pities them," replied
Ben. "Did I ever tell you how 'twas the
squirrel got his brush, Harry? "

" No," I exclaimed all excitement, " please
tell me."

254 Trails to Woods and Waters

Ben filled his pipe, and lighted it with a
stick from our camp fire and then began.

" Well, it was this way. One morning a
red squirrel was sitting upon a limb, chatter-
ing away for dear life, and having the finest
time in the world. Nuts were thick as spat-
ter on the tree and the sun was shining
brightly, and the squirrel was so glad that he
didn't know what to do about it, so he just
frisked and chattered. By and by, along
came the wood thrush. ' Hold on, Mr. Scat-
terbrains,' cried the wood thrush, ' I wonder if
you know what a noise you are making?
Why, if I had such a voice as you have got I
would never let any one hear me using it. It
fairly sets my nerves on edge. Why don't
you sing like this? ' Wood Thrush swelled
out his breast, and poured forth such a sweet
song, that the poor squirrel saw at once
that his voice was very harsh and dis-
cordant.

" ' There,' said the wood thrush, ending up
with a fine trill, ' now I would keep quiet, if I
were you.'

Camping With Old Ben 255

" Well, the wood thrush soon flew away,
and the squirrel felt so ashamed that he didn't
even squeak again that morning.

" Pretty soon, along came Blue Jay and he
says to Mr. Red Squirrel, ' What a rusty old
red coat you have got, Mr. Squirrel. If I was
you I think I would visit the tailor and get a
new suit, your old one is really quite dull.
Why don't you have a suit like mine? ' and
Blue Jay flashed his bright blue uniform in
the sunlight.

" Then Mr. Red Squirrel saw that he not
only had no voice, but that his coat, upon
which he had prided himself, was quite dull
compared with that of the blue jay.

" In those far off times Mr. Red Squirrel's
tail was not the fine brush that it is now, but a
smooth tail like that of the rat. So he really
had nothing to be proud of.

" Well, Mr. Red Squirrel felt so bad about
it that he finally went to the wood nymph.

' ' Dear Wood Nymph/ he said, ' I am
very sad. I have no fine voice like Wood
Thrush, and I have no gay coat like Blue

256 Trails to Woods and Waters

Jay, and they are all making fun of
me/

' ' I am sorry, Red Squirrel,' said the wood
nymph in such a sweet voice that Red Squir-
rel at once felt better. ' It is very impolite
of them to put on airs about graces that I
gave them. I shall have to speak to them
about it. But you are really quite as pretty
as they are in your way. Why, don't you
see, Mr. Squirrel, you have four legs, and
they have but two? You are much better
off in that respect.'

" ' That is so,' replied Red Squirrel rather
proudly, and he gave a great jump just to
show how nimble his legs were. ' If I only
had a beautiful tail like a peacock I think I
would be perfectly happy.'

" ' The peacock's tail would not do for you
at all,' said the wood nymph, ' but I will make
yours over and it shall be your flag that you
can wave defiantly at Wood Thrush and Blue
Jay whenever they tell you you are not
beautiful.'

" So Mr. Red Squirrel hopped upon the

Camping With Old Ben 257

beautiful wood nymph's shoulder, and she
covered his eyes with one hand, while with the
other she stroked his tail.

" * How long will it take you? ' asked the
squirrel.

" * See/ replied the wood nymph, and she
uncovered his eyes and Mr. Red Squirrel saw
that he had the most wonderful bushy tail in
the woods, that is, for his size.

" Then how he frisked about and chattered,
and all the time he kept his tail twitching and
waving so all the wood folks might see how
gay he had become. He was so delighted
with his new tail that he did not even stop to
thank the wood nymph, but ran away to show
it to Wood Thrush, and to Blue Jay.

" When the poor chipmunk saw what the
wood nymph had done for Red Squirrel, he
was much dissatisfied with his own smooth
tail, so he, too, went to the wood nymph.

" * Dear wood nymph,* cried Chippy, ' my
tail is very homely, won't you please fix it like
Red Squirrel's?'

" So the kind wood nymph covered Chippy's

258 Trails to Woods and Waters

eyes with her hand while she made his tail
more fluffy and beautiful.

" * It isn't nearly as large as Red Squir-
rel's,' said Chippy when she had finished.

" * Why, you are not half as large as Red
Squirrel yourself,' replied the wood nymph
laughing. ' I guess it is large enough for
your size.'

" But Chippy was not satisfied, so the wood
nymph finally painted his sides with several
bright stripes, and that is how he became little
Striped Sides.

" There is another pretty good story," con-
tinued Ben. " It is about how the skunk got
his scent. I presume people have often won-
dered.

" One day, years and years ago, a skunk sat
down under a juniper bush to think, and he
quite naturally got to thinking about himself.

" * What a poor stupid old thing I am,' he
said. ' I am the most defenseless of all the
forest folks. I cannot run away from my
enemies like the rabbit, because my legs are
short. I cannot bite like the woodchuck be-

Camping With Old Ben 259

cause my teeth are not so sharp. I cannot go
into my shell like the turtle when I am threat-
ened because I have no shell. I have no nim-
ble wits like the fox. If something is not
done my kind will be exterminated.'

" When the kind wood nymph saw the
skunk's sorrowful face, she was troubled, for
it saddens her to see any of her creatures
grieve.

" She pondered long and deeply upon the
subject, and then a bright smile overspread
her face. When the skunk saw the smile, he
was glad because he knew that the good wood
nymph had thought of something fine for
him.

" ' Mr. Skunk/ said the wood nymph in her
sweetest tones, ' I am most sorry that you
were left so defenseless, and I have thought
of a plan. I will give you this wonderful
smelling bottle, and whenever any of your
enemies trouble you, just take out the cork.'

" Mr. Skunk took the magic bottle, and
hurried away, eager to try it upon some one
of his enemies.

260 Trails to Woods and Waters

" He did not have to wait long, for soon
Mr. Red Fox came creeping by.

" ' Ah, here is a snap,' he said. ' My
breakfast already cooked. I do believe that
the skunk is the stupidest animal in '

" But Mr. Fox did not finish his remarks
for just at that point, when the fox was about
to jump, Mr. Skunk took out the stopper
from his magic bottle.

" Mr. Red Fox turned a double somer-
sault in his haste to leave that part of the
woods, and he ran away yelping, and pawing
at his eyes and nose.

" To this very day Mr. Red Fox always
takes off his hat when he meets a skunk, as do
all the other animals in the woods.

" Camp fire is getting low, Harry, I guess
we had better turn in."

We scrambled into the tent, like two boys,
and threw ourselves upon the luxuriant bed
of hemlock. Ben drew the outside blanket
over us and tucked it in and in fewer minutes
than it takes to tell it, I myself was standing
before the wood nymph asking that I might
be equipped with wings like the eagle.

MR. Fox DID NOT FINISH His REMARKS

CHAPTER XIV
FOREST FOOTFALLS

CHAPTER XIV

Forest Footfalls

WHAT glorious days those were when Ben
and I wandered in the mysterious woods
searching out its secrets, becoming each day
better acquainted with the birds and squirrels,
the rabbits and mice, and all the innumerable
family of the wood folks.

Little by little I learned to see with the
eyes of a woodsman.

To separate the rabbit from the brown
brake in which he squatted, the bird from the
leaves in which it sought to screen itself, the
squirrel from the knot that he tried to imper-
sonate.

" The only way to see things in the woods,"
said Ben one day as we sat on an old log in the
leafy green depths, " is to sit still and let them
come to you. We folks with all our cunning
are so much more stupid than the wild crea-

264 Trails to Woods and Waters

tures in the woods that they always see or hear
us first, and that is why the forest often seems
to be deserted when we pass through.

" Perhaps birds have been singing and
chirping, and squirrels have been chattering
a moment before, but as soon as the clumsy
foot of man comes pounding through the
woods, all becomes as quiet as though unin-
habited.

" A moose, large and clumsy as he seems,
can travel more quietly in the woods than the
untrained man. One moment the great bull
will be standing behind a tree looking out
curiously at you as you go thrashing through
the aisles of the forest ; the next instant, with-
out the slightest sound of a footfall or the
snapping of a twig, he fades away like a gray
shadow and disappears like a ghost.

" It would surprise you, Harry, to know
how many eyes are watching as you go
through the woods. Most of the wild crea-
tures do not flee away in panic, but secrete
themselves cunningly and watch to see what
this strange creature, man, is doing.

Forest Footfalls 265

" The squirrel flattens himself out on a
branch, and a limb two inches in diameter will
entirely hide him; or perhaps he may make
believe he is a knot upon the tree, and he will
do it so well that you will probably be de-
ceived.

" The rabbit usually hides in plain sight,
but you think him a stone or a continuation
of the end of an old log.

" The owl passes for a bunch of last year's
leaves or a gnarl on the tree. The principal
art in hiding in the woods is to keep perfectly
still and nature has so fashioned the coats of
the birds and the four-footed creatures that
they blend with the friendly shadows.

" Go into the woods and sit perfectly still
for half an hour and see what a change will
come.

" Perhaps your first caller is a little brown
bird who will come fluttering down through
the boughs to get a better look at you.

" Then the wood mouse will slip slyly out
of his den at the root of a tree and peep curi-
ously.

266 Trails to Woods and Waters

" Soon you may hear a pitter-patter in the
leaves. That is a squirrel ; it may be a weasel,
but it is more likely to be a squirrel. If the
noise is more like a strut than a pitter-patter,
it is a partridge and it may be feeding, look-
ing here and there in the ends of rotten logs
and stumps for grubs.

" If the sounds are further apart and more
uneven, it is probably a rabbit. The steady
trot, trot, trot, of a fox is always easy to rec-
ognize.

" It is as easy to recognize these little foot-
falls in the woods, once you have learned
them, as it is to tell the step of your father or
mother in your own home."

" Don't you ever get deceived, Ben? " I
asked. For to me nearly all the sounds in the
woods were merely noises, although I recog-
nized most of the bird songs and their call
notes.

" Oh, yes, even the best ear is deceived
sometimes," replied Ben, " but you must
learn in the woods to hear or see a little part
of the truth and supply the rest.

Forest Footfalls 267

" Then you will know that these gray and
brown streaks that you occasionally see flit-
ting across the path, or just gliding behind
some bush, are not fancies but real living
creatures, all eyes, ears and noses and quiver-
ing with alertness. Then every time that a
twig snaps, brake rustles, or a bough bends
you will know what it means.

" It is little things and not large ones in the
woods that tell the wonderful story of na-
ture's secret. Any one can follow a track in
the new snow, but only the trained trailer can
follow it upon bare ground.
. " The things the trailer sees you would pass
by as unimportant. It may be a broken
twig, some moss brushed off a log, a bit of
bark from a tree, but these little things tell
which way the trail leads."

" Looks to me a good deal like finding a
needle in a haymow," I ventured.

Ben laughed. " It used to seem so to me,"
he said cheerily, " but you see I am an old
man, and you are only a small boy. All
things come to him who waits, and a boy can

268 Trails to Woods and Waters

learn much by keeping his eyes and ears
open."

That evening after supper we piled our
camp fire high with dry limbs that I had gath-
ered for the purpose, and old Ben told me
camp fire tales until all thoughts of sleep left
me and I was as wide awake as an owl.

Finally, he turned in and I sat there in the
cheerful firelight with my back against an old
log listening to the pleasant night sounds and
thinking of what a wonderful place the forest
was, now I was learning to love it.

The great pines, upon the bluff back of the
camp, sighed mournfully and the night winds
answered them in low soughing tones.

Far away in the woods a fox barked his
sharp, short bark. The great horned owl
sounded his hunting cry and then listened for
the prey to betray its whereabouts. A little
screech owl whistled shrilly and a tree frog
took up the same strain. The tree frog's
song was still trembling in my ears when I
fell asleep beside the camp fire and dreamed
a terrible dream.

Forest Footfalls 269

I was a hunter in the African jungles and
was lying by my camp fire asleep when a huge
lion began creeping slowly upon me, intent
upon devouring me or carrying me off into
the jungle alive.

I was powerless to move or cry out and the
lion drew nearer and nearer.

The horror of the situation caused me to
wake to what seemed to me quite as bad a
plight as that in my dream.

I was not an African lion hunter, that was
plain, but only a terribly scared small boy
who had fallen asleep in the woods. The
camp fire had gone out and there was nothing
ominous in that, but there was another consid-
eration and here was the difficulty.

A mighty animal, probably a bear, was
standing guard over me. I could see the out-
line of the massive head against the sky, the
glow of two large yellow eyes, and could
feel the hot breath of the beast upon my
face.

Then I remembered dozens of horrible
stories that I had read, of how wild creatures

270 Trails to Woods and Waters

stood above sleeping hunters until they awoke
or moved, when they sprang upon them and
tore them to bits.

My tongue grew parched and clove to the
roof of my mouth. My heart beat so hard
that I knew the bear must hear it, and a chill
like ice water stole down my back.

Probably I lay like this for five seconds,
then a stratagem came to me which terror
helped me put into execution.

Our camp was on a side hill and the en-
trance of the tent was below me. With a
sudden motion I rolled over and over towards
the tent door, and at the same time I gave a
yell that made the vocal attempts of the great
horned owl seem like whispers.

Over and over I spun like a top until I
struck fairly upon the bunk, bringing Ben to
his feet as though steel springs had been
under him.

" Land of Liberty, Harry, what is it,
night-horse?" That was what Ben called
nightmare.

" A bear in camp, a bear," I gasped with

Forest Footfalls 271

just breath enough left to give the informa-
tion.

We could hear some large animal tumbling
about our dishes and sniffing hungrily.

" Don't sound to me exactly like a bear,"
said Ben in his ordinary tone of voice.

"Ben, Ben, keep still," I gasped, "we
haven't any gun."

Ben chuckled. " I'm not afraid of bears,"
he said. " This is a good, kind bear, Harry.

" Come here, bear," he continued snapping
his fingers and uttering a low whistle.

A great brute as large as a yearling calf
came bounding into the tent and with a
yell of terror I dove into a corner behind
Ben.

" Now, Harry, stop screeching and let me
introduce you to this good, kind bear. His
name is Ponto, and he wants to kiss you.
What a long tail he has for a bear! "

I uncovered my eyes and beheld Ponto, a
great Newfoundland dog belonging to one of
our neighbors.

" You see you will have to study forest

2J2 Trails to Woods and Waters

footfalls a little more, Harry," chuckled Ben
as he smoothed Ponto's coat; " then you will
be able to tell a mastadon from a field mouse
when it comes into camp."

CHAPTER XV
IN THE HUNTER'S MOON

CHAPTER XV

In the Hunter's Moon

OF all the seasons of the year that make
the heart glad, I know of none better than
October, the time of the Hunter's Moon, the
season of fulfillment.

Then all the promises of springtime have
been redeemed; then all the treasures of
nature are poured into the lap of the glad
earth and man has but to eat, drink and be
merry.

Then the corn is stacked in the field, a thou-
sand Indian wigwams with golden pumpkins
gleaming in between. The barn is fragrant
with the new hay. Granaries are full to over-
flowing with all the treasures of Ceres, while
Pomona's gifts hang bright red, yellow, and
green, in all the loaded orchards.

Even better than these are the walnut and
chestnut groves, with hair-raising climbs into

276 Trails to Woods and Waters

the tops of tall trees for the treasure of the
forest.

The cranberry bog, too, is bright with ber-
ries, and here one may not only pick ber-
ries, but also watch the muskrats piling up
their houses against the winter cold, which
will soon be upon them.

The muskrat is particularly fortunate, for
he not only lives in this queer house, but also
eats it, for it is partly built of the roots that
he best likes.

On these wonderful autumn nights, when
the sky was so studded with stars that there
seemed not room for one more, when the air
was rich with the smell of the ripe corn, and
the perfume of ripe fruit, old Ben and I used
to take long night walks, and it was then that
we did about the only hunting that we ever
permitted ourselves.

Old Ben's philosophy in regard to the wild
life was that each creature, and even the bugs
and insects, although many of them seemed
worse than useless to us, had their use. That
they were put here for some purpose, and that

In the Hunter's Moon 277

we spoiled the plan of nature when we at-
tempted to exterminate any of them.

He greatly astonished me one day by say-
ing that there were not twenty-five per cent,
as many song and game birds as there had
been twenty years before, and that it was
costing the government and the farmer nearly
a billion dollars a year in loss of crops, fight-
ing insects that had multiplied 'so rapidly
since the birds had been depleted and could
not longer keep these pests down.

" Hunt vermin, Harry, if you must hunt,"
he would say, " and let the rest of God's crea-
tures alone."

One autumn the raccoons became so plen-
tiful and did so much damage upon my
father's farm, that old Ben declared them ver-
min for the time being, and we had some fa-
mous hunts, although we got but one raccoon
all the autumn.

We did not so much mind if the raccoons
did make holes in the sides of the pumpkins,
scooping out the seeds and eating them, or if
they came into the garden and made sad work

278 Trails to Woods and Waters

in the vegetables, or ate sweet apples. They
had to live and there was enough for both us
and them, but when they visited our hen coops
and killed a dozen fine pullets in a single
night, even old Ben's anger was aroused, and
he and I declared war upon the raccoons.

Ben's old fox hound Bugler was a famous
raccoon dog, and together with a dog bor-
rowed from a neighbor, made up our pack.

We would keep the dogs in the leash, and
go with them to all the neighboring cornfields.
We would circle entirely around each field
and would usually find a fresh raccoon track
that the dogs were all eagerness to follow.

There were several reasons why we did not
get any coons. Sometimes they climbed such
large trees that we could not cut them down
or climb them. Often they holed in the
ledges near by, where we could not dig them
out, while frequently the dogs would lose the
scent after going a short distance, or Bugler
would strike a fox track, and leave the rac-
coon for a fox, which he considered better
worth while.

In the Hunter's Moon 279

One hunt that we had I shall never forget.
Thoughts of it even now make my hair rise on
my head, for it was only old Ben's wonderful
alertness and presence of mind that saved me
a terrible scratching from a bobcat.

On the particular night to which I refer we
had a varied experience, and one that filled
the evening with thrills enough to satisfy even
the mind of a boy.

First, the dogs took a fresh trail at the edge
of my father's cornfield, and went off at a
brisk pace. They soon holed the coon in
those same ledges that had given us so much
trouble, and we had to try again.

After keeping the dogs upon a leash for an
hour and not starting another raccoon we let
them go, and they were presently barking
briskly in a deep swamp.

Soon we heard some large animal coming
rapidly towards us, and were all excitement.

" That is no coon, Harry," said Ben under
his breath. " Keep your eyes open, boy."

Ben cocked his rifle, and stood listening
and watching. I strained my eyes in the

280 Trails to Woods and Waters

direction of the sound, but could make out
nothing.

Presently there was a rush of feet which
seemed to come immediately towards us, and
before I had the faintest idea of what game
was afoot, a beautiful doe, with a little dap-
pled fawn, stood panting at the edge of the
bright rim of light cast by our lanterns.

For a full minute they stood gazing wide-
eyed and spellbound at the strange bright-
ness, just as they will at a jack.

The fawn crowded close to its dam, and
gazed up at her with an inquiring look, but
the doe kept her terror-wide eyes fixed upon
the light of our lantern, as though her life de-
pended upon holding it with her gaze.

It was a wonderful picture and one that I
shall never forget.

The bright patch of light, like a picture
frame, and the two beautiful heads at its
centre.

Then the dogs came out of the swamp into
the open, with a great baying and the doe and
fawn fled precipitately, going at such a break-

In the Hunter's Moon 281

neck pace that it would seem as though they
must break their legs, for it was quite dark on
this particular evening.

Ben explained after we had caught the
dogs that a deer had a wonderful faculty for
running in the dark, even through thick tim-
ber, and that he had never seen but one deer
with a broken leg.

We took the dogs away for a mile in the
opposite direction from that in which the deer
had fled, before letting them go.

Once more they took to the deep swamp,
and soon they were baying away again in an
excited manner.

As the sounds came from one spot and the
dogs did not seem to be moving, Ben said that
something out of the ordinary was up. He
said it did not sound like " Up a Tree," and
he did not know what to make of it.

Five minutes of floundering about over
dead logs and stepping in deep holes which
we could not avoid, and we came up with the
dogs.

They were dancing about a queer looking

282 Trails to Woods and Waters

object, very much excited, but seemed to be
rather afraid of their game.

At the sight Ben rushed forward and began
whipping the dogs back with a switch that he
broke from a near-by bush.

In the dim light I could not just make out
what the queer game was, but Ben shouted,
" It's a porcupine, Harry. We came just in
time to save the dogs."

" Would he eat them? " I asked in my igno-
rance.

Ben laughed. " Worse than that," he re-
plied. " He would fill them full of quills."

Then I went up close and we examined the
queer fellow to our hearts' content.

I had never seen a porcupine before, a
hedgehog being the nearest approach that I
had known to this wonderful wilderness freak.

The hedgehog is first cousin to the porcu-
pine, but much smaller.

This specimen that Ben and I were exam-
ining would weigh twenty-five pounds and
was covered with quills three or four inches
long. Ben told me that they were barbed, so

In the Hunter's Moon 283

that if they once entered an object they could
not easily be pulled out, but would travel
until they came out at the other side.

The porcupine lay flat down upon the
ground to protect his belly, where there were
not so many quills.

" Now watch, Harry," cried Ben, and he
poked at the place where the tail should have
been, for Mr. Porcupine did not seem to have
any tail.

Quick as a flash the tail shot out, and two
quills stuck in the end of the stick. " That is
what would have happened to the dogs," ex-
plained Ben. " For all he looks so harmless
this is one of the worst fellows in the woods
for a dog to tackle."

We found a hollow log and poked Mr. Por-
cupine into it, and then partially plugged up
the end. " That will keep him snug until the
dogs forget about him," explained Ben ; " we
will let him out to-morrow."

This swamp seemed fated so we took the
dogs away to a maple sugar bush, which was
a fine place for raccoons.

284 Trails to Woods and Waters

They soon started what we thought a coon,
and were almost immediately barking " Up a
Tree."

Ben and I hurried to the spot, all excite-
ment.

That evening while we had been hunting
for our first raccoon track, Ben had been lec-
turing me upon the importance of always be-
ing upon the alert in the woods, and especially
of the necessity for instant obedience.

All the wilderness babies have to obey in-
stantly. Their lives depend upon it. So
man when he goes into the woods must be
alert, and it is always well for a boy to obey
his elders when he is in the woods without
stopping to ask questions.

One of the great dangers, especially when
in a district where timber has been recently
cut, is from limbs that lodge in the tops of
trees when adjacent trees are felled.

These limbs will often fall without a sec-
ond's warning and strike a man down. More
lumber jacks are hurt in this way than in any
other.

In the Hunter's Moon 285

I listened attentively while Ben talked, but
did not imagine that we would so soon have a
demonstration of the wisdom of my guide's
remarks.

On hurrying to the spot where the dogs had
brought to bay our supposed raccoon we dis-
covered that it was not in a very high tree, and
our hopes rose high as we thought we would
be sure of this coon.

Ben began circling about trying to locate
the raccoon, at the same time throwing sticks
and stones into the top of the tree.

Suddenly there was a sharp rustle in the
branches, and then old Ben's voice rang
out in a sharp command, " Jump, Harry,
jump."

I had just been pondering his remarks
about quick obedience in the woods, so with-
out waiting to ask why, I sprang ahead, turn-
ing to look over my shoulder as I jumped.

What I saw in mid-air above me made me
follow up my first spring with two more,
much longer and more hurried, for there just
above my head was a large, dark object, with

286 Trails to Woods and Waters

two gleaming eyes, the fierceness of which
seemed to freeze the blood in my veins.

I also imagined that I could see extended
claws, and the mouth of the creature wide
open ready to take a piece out of the back of
my neck.

Just as the animal struck the ground Ben's
rifle (old Kentucky) cracked, and an enor-
mous bay lynx stretched out dead almost at
our very feet.

Then when it was all over, I turned white
as a sheet, and my knees shook so that I could
hardly stand.

" That was a pretty close call, Harry,"
cried Ben. " I didn't suppose that my lesson
on instant obedience would be demonstrated
so soon, but you can't ever tell in the woods.
We must always be ready."

We tied the great cat to a pole and carried
it home between us, and were well satisfied
with that night's raccoon hunt.

But all the way home I kept looking over
my shoulder, half expecting to see another
lynx bearing down upon me from the upper
air.

TURNING TO LOOK OVER MY SHOULDER AS I JUMPED

CHAPTER XVI
A WINTER WALK

CHAPTER XVI

A Winter Walk

ONE afternoon late in December Ben and
I tied on our snowshoes and went for a tramp.

Although it was only December, there had
been several heavy snows, with some sharp
freezes, so that the old earth had the appear-
ance of midwinter.

It was fine snowshoeing, there being just
crust enough to hold us up so that we glided
along easily.

" It has always been a wonder to me," said
Ben, as we shuffled along, " how the wild crea-
tures can take such good care of themselves
in the extreme cold.

" A tiny field mouse or a bit of a wood-
pecker can keep warm and provide for their
daily wants where you and I would freeze and
starve.

290 Trails to Woods and Waters

" Where do you imagine the meadow mice
are now, Harry? "

"I don't know," I replied. "I should
think they would have a hard time of it."

"Not at all, not at all," replied Ben.
" They are as snug as ' a bug in a rug ' in
their endless winding tunnels under the grass
roots. The deep snow that looks so cold only
serves to keep them warm.

" A meadow mouse doesn't have to keep to
four or five rooms in the winter, as you or I
do. He has got a dozen pantries and a dozen
dining-rooms in his tunnels underground, and
sitting-room and bedroom with each. He
can travel also if he has a mind to in his wind-
ing tunnels.

" So all he has got to do is to eat, sleep and
be merry, while you and I have to saw and
split the wood and do a dozen other chores.

" The field mouse and the wood mouse are
just as snug, and they go abroad more even
than their cousins of the meadows.

" You will often see their dainty tracks in
the snow about the roots of a tree, or near

A Winter Walk 291

some wall. It is such a lacework pattern that
you will never mistake it.

" It is almost as much of a mystery how the
fox survives when we remember that his prin-
cipal article of diet, in the seasons when the
ground is not covered with snow, is mice. He
rarely catches any in the winter, although he
occasionally digs down to the grass and tries
his luck.

" Nearly all the other small game upon
which he relies in the summer is now denned
up, and Mr. Fox has to sharpen his wits or go
hungry.

" But he is a clever fellow and will get his
dinner in some way, where more stupid ani-
mals would starve.

" I am afraid, even as it is, that he would
often go hungry if it were not for the poor
rabbit, who is food for both bird and beast,
and probably the most widely hunted creature
that runs on four legs.

" The hawk, the owl, the weasel, the wild-
cat, the lynx, the fisher, and last, but not least,
Sly Reynard, all dine on the poor rabbit, and

292 Trails to Woods and Waters

if he did not multiply so rapidly, he would
soon become extinct.

" Now, Harry, what do you make of the
big bunch of leaves away up in the top of that
tall maple at the edge of the woods? "

" It looks like a crow's nest," I replied,
" but I guess it isn't anything but just some
leaves that have lodged in that crotch."

" Mighty queer that so many should have
lodged in just that way," replied Ben. " I
guess it is a squirrel's hammock and that one
and perhaps two sleek grayers are tucked
away in that swinging cradle so that every
wind that blows will rock them in their
sleep.

" Some of the grayers den up in hollow
trees, while others who are more fanciful build
themselves a veritable cradle in the treetop.
They take short sticks and place them in a
triangular shape where limbs fork out, and
then begin filling in the middle of the triangle
with leaves.

" Then they build on more sticks and fill up
with more leaves until they have a bunch as

A Winter Walk 293

large as a bushel basket. When this is done
they dig a hole from the lower side into the
middle of this nest. The hole is always on
the lee side of the nest so that they will not get
the wind. There they sleep, while the wind
rocks their cradle.

" In the same manner a porcupine will
crawl up to the very top of a slight tree and
let the wind rock him to sleep. He hasn't
any fear either that he will forget himself and
let go when he is napping. About the only
thing his feet have ever been taught is to
hold on.

" Here we are at the rabbit swamp. Now
we will have to take off our snowshoes and
wallow."

It was not so much fun treading our way
through the laurel as it had been scuffing
along on the top of the snow. Occasionally,
I would catch my toe under a root or in a tan-
gle of underbrush, and down I would go.
Once in a while, I would step in some deep
hole that the snow had covered up and would
go in almost to my armpits ; then Ben would

294 Trails to Woods and Waters

pull me out, and we would both have a good
laugh at my expense.

" Here is the rabbit's main street through
his village," said Ben, winding about through
the laurel. " Here on each side are the ave-
nues and the other side streets and leading off
from them are the paths leading up to Mr.
Rabbit's front door. Perhaps Mr. Rabbit's
house is a nest under three feet of snow be-
neath a bunch of laurel roots, or maybe it is
an old burrow ; in either case he keeps as mum
about it as he can. He doesn't keep his card
tacked up to tell the other wild creatures
where he lives."

" Why not? " I asked. " I should think
he would want his friends to know where he
lived."

" So he would if he had any, other than
rabbit friends," replied Ben, " but his ac-
quaintances outside the rabbit family are
mostly enemies. If it is near a stream the
mink will come and try to find what number
Mr. Rabbit's house is.

" The weasel will also trv to catch him

A Winter Walk 295

asleep, while half a dozen others will try to
catch him outside his house.

" See that old yellow birch stub at the edge
of the swamp? " asked Ben.

I saw it and remarked that it did not look
very interesting.

" There you are wrong, boy. Dead trees
are always more interesting than live ones
when you are out looking for the wild folk.
One old dead maple stump standing in the
middle of the cow pasture is worth a whole
grove of ordinary maples.

" Now, that old birch stump was the home
of a family of raccoons last year, and I
wouldn't be surprised if they were sleeping
there now. You see, Harry, the raccoon is
the little brother of the bear. He walks
like a bear, he acts like a bear, and his face
looks very much like a bear's. He likes
many of the things that a bear eats; in fact,
he is a real little bear, although he has a
long ringed tail and is considered only a rac-
coon."

We went over to the birch stump and

296 Trails to Woods and Waters

Ben pointed out fresh scratches that some
animal had made by climbing the tree re-
cently.

" There is another point where he resem-
bles the bear; he always backs down out of his
front door as Bruin does. Ten to one,
Harry, there are three or four fat coons in
there asleep at this very moment.'*

" There is one thing that I don't under-
stand, Ben," I said, as we again put on our
snowshoes and tramped on through the open
hard wood.

" When I go into the woods alone there
don't seem to be so very many things to see,
although I see more than I used to, but when
I go with you every old stump contains some-
thing."

Ben chuckled. "Does seem as though I
had the street and number for all the wild folk
down in my head, doesn't it? Well, I haven't
at all. I just have to look for things like
other people. A great many of the things
that I show you I have spent days and weeks
looking for, The secrets of the woods don't

A Winter Walk 297

come easy, and that is why they are worth
trying to discover.

" Did you ever stop to think where all the
woodpeckers are keeping themselves in the
winter? They don't migrate, that is, not
many of them. The golden woodpecker, or
flicker, does, but we still have the hairy, the
downy, the red-crest, and the yellow-bellied
sap-sucker. You will see them all on warm
days.

" In the autumn these woodpeckers pick
out winter quarters in the trees, and that is
why you so often hear pounding in the fall.
They make the winter nest larger and more
commodious than the spring one but Mr. and
Mrs. Woodpecker each have a nest, usually
in different trees. In fact, I can't see that
the pairing woodpeckers have very much to
do with one another, once their young are
reared.

" The yellow-bellied sap-sucker enjoys the
winter, especially the latter part of it, more
than all the other woodpeckers put together,
for it is his special time of harvest.

298 Trails to Woods and Waters

" As soon as sap will run, Mr. Yellow-
Belly picks out a maple that he knows con-
tains sweet sap, and goes up and down the
trunk drilling small holes through the bark
and into the wood. These holes are slanted
down so that when the sap flows they will fill.
By the time Mr. Yellow-Belly has drilled his
fiftieth hole, the first is full of sap, and all the
rogue has to do now is to travel up and down
the trunk of the tree drinking out of his sap
wells. He will sometimes spend nearly the
whole of a warm March day drinking sap.

" Now we are coming to some queer look-
ing country. It is the edge of Great Bear
Swamp, but we are not going to penetrate it."

It was a wild-looking, desolate piece of
land, scantily wooded with small willows,
birches, both white and yellow, and dotted
here and there with a thick clump of spruce.
The land was evidently rather moist and was
altogether as desolate a spot as I had ever
seen.

" I don't see what we came here for, Ben,"
I said. " We can't see much here, unless it

A Winter Walk 299

is an occasional rabbit track. It is about as
lonesome a place as ever I saw."

" It is a lonesome spot," replied Ben, " but
those are just the places that the wild crea-
tures like. They are not so fond of man's
society as you might imagine.

" But I guess you will see other than rabbit
tracks here. Tracks are just what I came
here to show you."

Ben was right, as usual. In a few mo-
ments we came upon the greatest jumble of
tracks that I have ever seen. They ran in
every direction, but most of them kept to
well-beaten paths.

" What in the world is this, Ben? " I cried,
all excitement. " It doesn't look like any-
thing I have ever seen. Seems as though a
lot of sheep had been playing fox and geese."

" That is a pretty fair guess, Harry," said
Ben. " They do look a little like sheep or
calf tracks, but that is not what it is. It is a
deer yard."

" A deer yard ! " I exclaimed, looking my
astonishment.

300 Trails to Woods and Waters

Ben laughed. " You see, when the deep
snow comes the deer is in a bad fix. With
his small cutting hoof he isn't built for
traveling in the snow. So he remedies
the difficulty by making himself winter
quarters.

" The deer always plan their yard so that
it shall include plenty of birch, maple and
willow browse, and so that they can get to a
spring or brook.

" Of course, if the water fails they eat
snow, but they much prefer water."

" Ben," I cried, all excitement, " let's run
them up into one corner of the yard where we
can see them."

My companion laughed. " I guess you
would find that quite an undertaking. This
yard extends nearly around Bear Swamp,
and it probably contains a dozen or fifteen
deer. The yard is now doubtless several
miles in extent, but it will be much smaller as
the winter advances.

" The deer will find it too hard work to
keep it all broken out, after the deep snows

A Winter Walk 301

come, so they will give up a large part of it
and narrow down to a hundred acres.

" I found the deer browsing not far from
here the other day and perhaps we may see
them if we have luck.

" Deer are very wary. Their scent is of
the keenest, and their hearing is about as
good. The wind is in our favor, however,
and that is worth a good deal."

Spite of all we could do, our snowshoes
made quite a noise crunching upon the crust,
but, as Ben said, the wind was in our favor,
and that would also carry the noise as well as
our scent away from the deer.

We crept cautiously forward for about
forty rods.

Finally we came out on the brow of a slight
hill which was quite thickly covered with
scrub spruces.

Here we crept along from tree to tree,
nicely screened by the dark green plumes.

Ben was the first to reach the brow of
the hill and peer down into the valley be-
yond.

302 Trails to Woods and Waters

When he had done so he turned to me and,
putting his finger on his lips as a sign to keep
very quiet, he lifted his other hand and wig-
gled his forefinger.

I knew the sign and was overjoyed. Ben
had told me that to all tribes of the American
Indians and to trappers and hunters, the
world over, the wiggling of the index finger
meant, " deer near at hand," as it is supposed
to imitate the wiggling of the deer's tail when
feeding.

I crept forward to Ben's side and peered in
the direction that he indicated.

Beneath us was a warm, sheltered valley
several acres in extent thickly dotted with
small birches and here and there a clump of
spruce. The rays of the setting sun fell
aslant through the birches, causing their
trunks to shine like silver, in strong contrast
to the dark green of the spruce. The long
shadows from the evergreens fell across the
valley like somber bars.

The snow sparkled and glistened and twigs
that were snow-laden glittered like diamonds.

A Winter Walk 303

The sun stood on the distant hilltop, gilding it
with crimson and golden streaks.

There, in this wonderful setting of valley
and hilltop, of light and shadow, were five
feeding deer.

A tall, stately buck was holding down a
young birch while he browsed contentedly.

Two does were nibbling at some branches
already broken down, while two fawns, who
by this time had nearly lost their dappled
markings, were standing close to the doe's
flanks, as though for warmth and protection.

I hardly dared to breathe lest by some
magic the picture should fade away and be
lost. I had barely taken in all the details of
this wonderful scene when there was a strong
puff of wind at our backs.

"Wind has shifted, Harry," whispered
Ben. " Now watch them."

The whisper had barely died upon his lips
when the buck threw up his head, snorted and
stamped as though half belligerent and half
terrified. Then there was another strong
puff of wind and he stamped and snorted

304 Trails to Woods and Waters

again, this time giving a short whistle, whicK
sounded like blowing in a bottle.

At this signal the two feeding does sprang
to his side, closely followed by the fawns, and
the five deer stood in a close bunch wide-eyed
and fearful. Their heads held high in the air,
and their nostrils distended, their every sense
was strained to catch the slightest sound or
scent.

Again the wind blew strong at our backs,
and this time there was no mistaking the
taint. With a snort of terror the buck
wheeled and led the wild procession at a
breakneck pace across the valley and over the
distant hilltop.

In fewer seconds than it takes to tell it, the
gloom had swallowed them and the magic of
the few fleeting moments was broken.

How suddenly the scene changed. Almost
in a twinkling the long purple shadows turned
to black, the sun disappeared from the distant
hilltops, and only a blood red spot showed
where the horizon had been warm and glow-
ing a minute before.

HE STAMPED AND SNORTED AGAIN, THIS TIME
GIVING A SHORT WHISTLE

A Winter Walk 305

In a second the thermometer seemed to
have fallen a dozen degrees and the wind
whistled dismally in the leafless treetops.

I shivered and turned up my coat collar.
" Let's go home, Ben," I said. " There isn't
any more fun for us in the woods to-day."

Without a word Ben turned and led the
way and the rhythmic, mournful creak of our
snowshoes made a fitting accompaniment to
my thoughts.

How cold, how cheerless, how desolate, the
old world, that had seemed so bright and
cheerful a few moments before, had grown.
The warmth, the life, the joy was all gone out
of it. How relentless and cold was the biting
wind and frost, and how unmindful of all the
wild creatures that in some miraculous way
must feed themselves and keep warm until
spring came.

" Harry," said Ben, as we came out into
the road just above the barn, " I'll bet I can
show you something in your own barn that
you don't know is there."

" I'll bet you can't," I replied. " You may

306 Trails to Woods and Waters

know the woods, Ben, but there isn't a crack
or corner in the old barn that I don't know."

" Let's see," replied Ben.

We went to the barn door and Ben began a
high-keyed, tremulous whistle, as mournful
as a dirge.

To my great surprise it was answered in
the same key from somewhere upon the big
beams. Again Ben whistled and again the
answer. Then there was a sudden flapping
of wings and a bird about the size of a quail
flapped down almost into our faces, hovered
for a moment before us as though to inspect
us and then flapped back into the dark.

It was a chunky brown bird, with a catlike
head and a very hooked beak, but I had never
seen it in the barn before.

" It's a little barn owl," said Ben. " I dis*
covered him whistling here when I came by
this afternoon, and I imagined that he had
taken up winter quarters in the barn.

" You can almost always make one of those
little screechers fly down at you by imitating
his whistle. It seems to anger him to hear

A Winter Walk 307

any one else whistling his own particular
tune.

" Good-night, Harry. We will try and
stalk the deer again some day, but you'll
never see a prettier picture than we saw to-
day, if you tramp the woods until you are as
old as I am."

CHAPTER XVII

CAMP FIRE LEGENDS OF THE
WOOD FOLKS

CHAPTER XVII

Camp Fire Legends of the Wood Folks

PROBABLY the most delightful of all the
camp fires beside which old Ben told stories,
while I listened with wide open eyes, was
that of the sugar bush on a March night.

It really was not a camp fire at all, but the
wonderful blaze in the great arch, above
which the sap danced and steamed in the four-
barrel pan.

Any boy who has not boiled sap on a March
night with old Ben or some other good com-
panion does not know what he has missed.

When there has been a great flow of sap
and all the storage hogsheads in camp are full
to overflowing, then it is necessary to boil
night and day, to make room for the next
run, and here it is that the boy who is not
afraid of the dark, or the howling of the

3 1 2 Trails to Woods and Waters

boisterous wind in the treetops, gets a whole
lot of fun.

I was always glad for these extra flows of
sap in our camp, for although it made back-
breaking work, I knew that each evening I
should see Ben's lantern come swinging down
the road, and a moment later I should hear
him shouting for me in the yard.

There is so much mystery about a lantern
out of doors at night, and the shadows are so
fearful that the whole gives just the right
mixture of adventure.

Arrived at the camp Ben would refill the
sap pan from the mighty storage hogsheads,
fill the arch with snapping pine and spruce
logs, and then spread blankets before the
cheerful blaze, and we were ready for the
winter camp fire stories. Of course Ben had
to fill his pipe and puff away solemnly for a
few moments before we were really off.

" Did I ever tell you how it was that the
honey-bee got its sting? " he asked one night.

" No," I replied, " please tell me." Ben
settled back against a log in a comfortable

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 313

position, pulled steadily at his pipe for a few
seconds and then began.

" Well, it was this way. Years and years
ago, when the world was sort of new, as you
might say, the bees and the wasps didn't have
any stingers. There are honey-bees now in
the tropics that don't have any, but in those
days none of them had stingers. Well, there
was a swarm of bees that lived in an old hol-
low rock maple. They were strong, swift
flyers, and very industrious. They had lived
in the old maple for several years, and for ten
feet, up and down, the hollow tree was filled
with wonderful honey. It was a very large
swarm, probably sixty thousand bees.

"Well, the tree that they lived in was
standing at a slant. It had been partly blown
over, and had lodged against other trees. The
hole where the bees entered the tree was on
the under side, so the rain didn't beat in, and
it was shaded in summer; altogether it was a
fine home for the bees.

" The tree had been struck by lightning
some time before they found it, and the bark

314 Trails to Woods and Waters

had all peeled off. The rains and the winds
had polished the wood until it was as smooth
as finished ebony.

" One day a bee who was smarter than all
her fellows had an idea. She had seen an
otter sliding down a slippery clay bank, hav-
ing the finest kind of a time, so it occurred to
her that perhaps bees could do something
similar. She probably never would have tried
it, though, if she hadn't noticed what a fine
slide could be had upon the bowl of the old
maple that was so hard and smooth. So she
buzzed up to the top of the smooth place and
pulled her feet up under her, and folded her
wings. Then she pushed off.

" Down she went in a splendid coast, and
when she reached the bottom, she just spread
her wings and soared off into the air, flying
back to the starting place. It was just like
a boy with a new toy. The more she slid
the better she liked it. Finally other bees
noticed what she was doing and they tried it.
More and more bees came to try the new sport
until at last there were hundreds sliding down

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 315

the smoother side of the old maple. Finally,
the queen bee noticed that they were not
coming in with honey as they should be and
she came to a crack in the tree and peeped
out to see what was the matter.

" The queen at once put an end to the sport
for that day by sending them all off for honey,
but the sport got so popular that the queen
had to make a rule that the bees should not
slide down hill, until they had made so many
trips to the flowers for honey. After that,
the bees would hurry about their work so that
they could get a chance to slide.

" Finally, one day a bee discovered an-
other partly fallen tree in the woods and
stopped gathering honey to slide upon it.
But this tree was not smooth like the first,
and before the bee knew what had happened,
she had stuck a sharp splinter in her tail.
This made it impossible for her to slide any
more and it pained her. All of which she
thought was punishment for not gathering
honey when she ought and leaving the play
until later.

316 Trails to Woods and Waters

" When she got home the rest of the bees
all made sport of her with the splinter in her
tail, until at last in sheer desperation she gave
one of them a severe thrust with the tail,
which was now doubly sharp. The afflicted
bee soon discovered that the new tail was a
great weapon of defense, and none of the
bees dared to tease her after that.

" But her weapon was not perfect until she
had dipped it in poison, which she got from
a poison plant.

" One day, soon after the bee had poisoned
her tail, a meddlesome boy came poking about
the tree. He soon discovered the hole where
the bees entered, and began throwing stones
at it.

" ' I will teach him a lesson,' said the bee
with the poison tail. ' Now you just keep
your eyes on that boy and see the fun/

" Zip, went the bee like a bullet, and she
struck the boy fairly on the end of the nose,
driving her poison splinter deep into the flesh.

" The boy gave a howl that you could have
heard for a quarter of a mile and started for

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 3 1 7

home as though all the bears that came after
the bad boys who sauced Elisha had been after
him. But pretty soon his nose began to swell,
and how it did smart and ache ! When he got
home to his mother, it was twice its normal
size, and he was a comical sight. But the bee
who had stung him had been so injured by
having the splinter pulled from her tail that
she died. That is the penalty that they pay
for stinging to this day. The honey-bee who
stings you always dies in the act.

" When the other bees saw the boy jump
and clap his hands over his nose, and heard
the terrible yell that he gave, they were so
tickled that they all vowed then and there
that they would fix their tails just like the
bee who had stung the boy. So the following
day nearly the whole swarm went to the rough
tree, of which the bee with a stinger had told
them, and slid down it until each had a splinter
in her tail. Then all went to the poison plant
and poisoned their splinters, and the whole
hive were as well armed as the first bee had
been.

3 1 8 Trails to Woods and Waters

" After that, men and animals became so
afraid of the bees that they left them very
much alone, and they were happier and more
powerful than they had been before.

" When these bees with the poison tails
came to hatch little new bees, it was discovered
that the new bees had inherited the poison
tail, which greatly delighted the queen and
all the swarm.

" The bees with the poison tail who lived
in the old hollow maple were so much better
able to take care of themselves that all the
old kind soon died out, until to-day all the
bees in these parts have the stinger, as bears
and boys and men can testify."

" That's a fine story, Ben," I said at the
conclusion of the tale. " Can't you think of
another?"

Ben refilled his pipe and pulled away at it
thoughtfully for a few moments, then said:

" Don't think I ever told you how it was
that the snake changes his suit every year.
Perhaps that would interest you.

" Well, when the snake went into the

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 319

Garden of Eden and tempted Eve there isn't
any account of his going on his belly. I can't
j.ust say what his manner of traveling was.
Perhaps he walked on the end of his tail, but
if he did, he was a pretty good balancer.

" When God saw what the snake had done,
how he had tempted Eve, got her to eat of
the tree of knowledge, and broke up the whole
plan of Eden, God said to the snake, ' Hence-
forth you shall go upon your belly and be
hated and bruised by men.'

" So the snake got down on his belly and
wriggled out of Eden, feeling that he had
sorter ' cooked his goose,' as you might say.

"At first he didn't mind it so much, for
he could go creeping about in the grass very
still and scare people, especially Eve and her
daughters, making them scream and run.
This was great fun for the snake and he would
nearly split with laughter each time.

" But he soon found that there were great
disadvantages in having to crawl on one's
belly. In the first place, he could not go fast ;
in the second place, he could not see off and

320 Trails to Woods and Waters

know when his enemies were coming; but,
worst of all, it wore out his clothes.

" Why, that snake hadn't been going on his
belly for three months before his pants were
out at the knees, and he had scraped off all
his vest buttons, while his coat was in tatters
and so ragged that he could hardly keep it on.

" This greatly injured the snake's vanity,
for he had a fine mottled suit of which he had
been very proud before his fall.

" Finally his clothes got to looking so bad
that he hardly dared to show himself, not
even to scare Eve and her daughters, which
had been his chief delight. Instead, he slunk
about in dark corners and lost his appetite for
frogs.

" Finally he got so blue about it that he
decided to go and tell the Wood Nymph his
troubles and see if anything could be done for
his case.

" ' Dear Wood Nymph, kind friend of all
living creatures/ he began, * I am in great
trouble. Ever since the day that I got those
silly bipeds to eat the apple, I have had to

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 321

go on my belly and my suit is getting so
threadbare that I cannot appear in company
any more. Besides, it no longer protects my
under skin, which is sensitive, and is already
quite sore with scraping along the ground.
If something cannot be done for me, I shall
soon be entirely worn out.'

" When the Wood Nymph saw the snake's
sorrow, although he was an ugly, wriggling,
hissing thing, her heart was touched, for she
knew that everything that God has made is of
use and has its place.

" ' Mr. Snake,' she said, ' I am grieved for
you. It was a sorry joke that you played in
the Garden, and we cannot see when it will
ever end, but I know your nature and your
weakness, and will not judge you too harshly.
You will have to go on your belly for the rest
of your days as God has commanded; there
is no help for that; but this much I will do
for you. Each year when your old suit is
worn out, I will give you a new one. When
the old suit is entirely worn out, if you will
wriggle and twist and writhe, you will find

322 Trails to Woods and Waters

that it will come off, and under it there will
be a fine new suit. But the style and color
of the suit will always be the same, so that
people may know you and keep out of your
way/

" When the snake heard this, he was as glad
as a boy with a new kite, and at once went off
into the grass to try and discover if the Wood
Nymph had spoken the truth, for, being a
great liar himself, he was suspicious of other
people. So the snake wriggled, and writhed
and twisted until his skin came off, and there
under it, just as the Wood Nymph had said,
was a new suit.

" Then the snake lay in the sun to let his
new suit dry and harden, and when it was
dried, he went about his business a happier
snake than he had been for many a week.

" Speaking of how the snake sheds his skin,"
continued Ben, " reminds me of how Red
Buck loses his antlers each spring. No mat-
ter how proudly he has been stepping about
a few hours before, suddenly Jiis glory falls,
and he is left as hornless as a doe.

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 323

" Then in three or four weeks, some
bunches appear where the horns were, and
these bunches are the new horns just begin-
ning to grow. The horns are composed of
lime which comes from the deer's blood. Right
at the base of the horns is a large artery which
constantly feeds the new growth with blood,
and this blood gradually deposits the hard
substance that makes horn.

" While the buck is getting his new horns,
he has troubles enough of his own, and so
does not make any for others of the wood
folks.

" The new horns are covered with a soft
substance which is called velvet, and you will
often see where the buck has rubbed it off
against a tree. At this time of year, the new
horns are sensitive and have to be continually
rubbed. This is also to harden them, and get
them in shape so that the red buck can fight
his enemies, which are usually other bucks.

" It is very strange that the deer family
should grow such splendid horns only to drop
them in the late winter. The antlers of the

324 Trails to Woods and Waters

Alaskan moose sometimes weigh ninety or a
hundred pounds, and are six feet across.

" According to one of my camp fire legends,
Harry, Red Buck didn't use to drop his horns
each year, but they were taken away from him
as a punishment, just to keep him from being
too high and mighty.

" In those old days, when he kept his horns
for the entire year, he got to be so high step-
ping, and so combative that there was no
peace for any one. He would even charge the
rabbits and foxes, or anything that came his
way. Often the spirit of combat was so
strong within him that he would butt his own
mate about, and he finally got so that he occa-
sionally killed his own fawn, especially if the
fawn happened to be a buck.

" At last he got so bad that all the wood
folks, including Red Buck's mate, went to the
Wood Nymph and made complaint against
him. Mrs. Red Buck was loath to do this,
but she really could not stand having her
fawns killed.

" When the good Wood Nymph heard all

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 325

this, and especially how Red Buck had killed
his offspring, she looked very grieved, and her
heart was full of trouble. She was kind and
gentle herself, and she wished all the wood
folks to be the same. Of course some of them
had to kill others for food, and this was ex-
pected, but to kill one's own relations in this
way was too much.

" ' Red Buck shall be punished,' said the
Wood Nymph when she had heard all the
complaints. ' I have made him too beautiful,
and have given him too large and too strong
a set of antlers, but I cannot take them away
from him entirely, for that will leave him de-
fenseless. He must still have some weapon
with which to fight the battle of life.'

" It was a very vexing question, and for
a long time the Wood Nymph did not know
what to do, but she finally decided to take
down Red Buck's pride by taking away his
horns for a part of the year, leaving him horn-
less only for that portion of the year when
he needs them the least.

" So every year, a few weeks before the new

326 Trails to Woods and Waters

fawns come, the proud buck loses his horns.
Then his pride leaves him, and he goes away
into the deep woods and nurses his new horns
until they are quite well grown, and it is not
until he has polished and rubbed them for
several months that they are ready for the
battle."

" That is a good story, Ben," I said when
he had finished, " but I guess it is a make-
believe."

" You ask the buck if losing his horns is a
make-believe, and I think he will tell you
quite different."

" You don't know how it was that the par-
tridge learned to drum, Ben?" I asked. I
felt quite sure that if Ben didn't know, he
would think up some ingenious way for ac-
counting for it.

My companion refilled his pipe and pulled
thoughtfully at it for several minutes before
making reply. " Nothing polishes up my
memory like a full pipe," he said at last.

" I didn't seem to remember just how it
was at first, but I guess I have recollected.

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 327

You see I am such an old man that I have
forgotten a great many things that I used to
know, and that was one of them. It was this
way:

" Once there was a cock partridge who was
not so beautiful as his fellows, and he had a
hard time getting a mate. You know girls
and women think a pile of fine feathers, and
so do the lady birds.

" This cock was strong and smart and all
right in every way, only his feathers were
rusty, and this made him feel awkward and
out of place. You know how a boy feels when
company comes and he has got on his old
clothes with holes in the knees and elbows.

" Well, this cock didn't have anything but
just his old every-day rusty suit, so he didn't
feel like strutting up and down, and wooing
the lady partridges as the other cocks did.
And the lady partridges wouldn't have any-
thing to do with him.

" One day the poor cock was standing on
an old log in a deep thicket, wishing that the
hawk or the owl would happen along and

328 Trails to Woods and Waters

carry him off, he was that cut up about it,
when in a sudden fit of despair he raised both
his wings and beat upon his breast. To his
great surprise the thump of his wings against
his breast made a loud noise that almost
frightened him. But the sound that he had
made interested him, so presently he raised
his wings and struck again.

" He soon discovered that by swelling out
his feathers and by striking very hard and
fast with his wings he could make a noise that
fairly made the woods ring.

" When the rabbits and the squirrels first
heard this racket in the deep woods that had
been so quiet and peaceful a moment before,
they were greatly frightened and fled away in
terror, but finally one rabbit who was braver
than the rest came back to investigate.

" The thing that the rabbit saw fairly took
its breath away, for there, standing on the
middle of the log, was Mr. Rusty Coat, as
they called him. He was bristled up to his
greatest size, and h|s wings were beating upon
his breast so rapid%& that the eye could not

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 329

follow them. The cock looked as large as a
bushel basket.

" When the rabbit saw what was going on
in the thicket, it hurried away and told a fe-
male partridge who was scratching for beech-
nuts in a neighboring thicket. So the lady
partridge went to see.

" She was so delighted with the perform-
ance and with the enormous size of the cock
when he was drumming that she went right
up to him and began making love to him when
he had finished, although she had refused him
several times before that spring.

" But by this time the cock was getting
mighty vain of his accomplishment, so that
when the lady partridge asked him to marry
her, he said ' not much.' He was too busy
drumming to think of marriage.

" They say a woman can't keep a secret.
No more can a lady partridge. So when the
poor female saw that it was no use trying to
get the cock, she told her sister partridges of
the wonderful drummer on the old log in the
witch-hazel thicket. So other female par-

330 Trails to Woods and Waters

tridges came to hear the wonderful drummer,
and he soon had all the lady partridges in
the woods about his drumming log watching
and listening.

" No matter how saucy or hateful they had
been to him when he was only Mr. Rusty
Feathers, all were ready to praise and admire
him now.

" Well, it ended just as it always does,
Harry. They were so persistent that he
finally had to marry one of them to get rid of
the rest, so he picked out the most beautiful
and the largest of all his admirers, and they
were married by the Woodchuck, who was
then Justice of the Peace, and I presume they
lived happy for ever afterwards.

" You see this partridge's drumming had
turned out such a success that all the other
partridges soon learned it, and they have kept
it up to this very day."

" Is that all, Ben? " I asked, my eyes riv-
eted upon this wonderful magician of the
camp fire.

" Surely, Harry," replied my companion,

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 331

jumping up briskly, " you don't want all the
good things in one night. Besides it is time
for our midnight lunch."

Then we would open the basket that my
mother had packed for us and such an array
of good things would be piled upon the
blanket that I speedily forgot to tease for
more camp fire stories.

When we had finished bread and butter,
with eggs boiled in the hot sap, and eaten pie
and doughnuts, we would set rosy Baldwin
apples sputtering before the dancing blaze,
and chestnuts roasting in the coals. I would
shell the popcorn, and soon it would be pop-
ping away like a Lilliputian army.

With these good things so tempting to the
palate of a country boy we rounded out our
midnight meal.

Outside the winds would be howling and
shrieking in the treetops, while the great
branches thrashed their arms and groaned.

Perhaps in some lull there would come the
mellow, mournful call of the great Horned
Owl. I knew from Ben's teachings that the

332 Trails to Woods and Waters

small horned owls were already hatched in the
hollow top of some tree in the black ash
swamp.

Or maybe the lull between gusts from na-
ture's mighty bellows would be punctuated
with the sharp bark of a fox, some night
prowler in search of a partridge or a field
mouse.

If the night was very cold occasionally the
crust upon the snow would snap with a report
like the crack of a rifle.

How well I knew all these night sounds,
and what they meant, thanks to my kind old
Woodsman Friend.

From listening to the outdoor sounds I
would fall to studying the queer shapes that
came and went in the firelight, or in the great
clouds of steam that danced over the sap pan.
Hobgoblins and ghosts without end.

I never could make out whether it was the
howling of the wind and the snapping of the
fire, or the bubbling of the sap, or all three
that made me so sleepy.

When Ben had made everything snug for

Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 333

the night, and had spread down a couple of
warm buffalo robes that we kept at camp for
the purpose, a cozier bed could hardly be
imagined. So to the music of the howling
wind, and snapping fire and bubbling sap, we
fell asleep before our winter camp fire.

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