The feet of the furtive

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THE FEET OF THE FURTIVE

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

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The Gauntlet of Fire i

In the World of the Ghost-Lights . . . •195 The Moose that Knocked at the Door . . .218

II

There were eight gigantic wolves in the pack, and one much smaller and slenderer, who seemed, none the less, to wield a certain influence over her fellows. The eight were such portentous figures as one would never expect to see in the eastern wilderness, being of the most formidable breed of Alaskan timber wolf, long of jaw and flank, broad of skull, massive of shoulder, deep of chest, and each powerful enough to slash the throat of a caribou cow at one snap and to pull her down in her run. Yet, with one exception, they had never seen Alaska, or a running caribou, or the wild rivers rolling north, or the peaks of endless snow. They had been born south of the St. Lawrence, in the limited and half-tamed forests of Northern Vermont, and they had come sweeping northeastward in the search for more spacious solitudes.

The establishing of so great and fierce a company in the ordered east had come about in this way. Some years earlier, at a village in Northern Vermont, a splendid timber wolf had made his escape from the caravan of a travelling menagerie. He had been hunted, with abundant hue and cry, for several days. But he was sagacious. He did not halt in his long, untiring gallop till he had put safe leagues between himself and his pursuers, and found a forest wild enough to hide in. He had hunted, with wise discretion, deer and hare and other wild creatures only, and had strictly withheld himself from all quarry that he thought to be under the protection of man. Thanks to this prudence, no man suspected his existence. After a while, meeting in the neighbourhood of a village a long-jawed, wolfishlooking mongrel with husky and deerhound in her veins, he had easily induced her to leave her master and take to the wild life for which she had always had a dim craving. She had hunted beside him faithfully, and given him two litters — big-boned whelps, which grew up as huge and savage as their sire, but far less sagacious than he, and of more evil temper, as is apt to be the case in such a cross. They obeyed their sire and leader because they feared him and felt his dominance, and they had a respect for the virulent and sudden flame of their slim mother's wrath. But as time went on, and wild game grew scarce, they could not be withheld from foraging near the villages, and so they presently drew to themselves the notice of men. When a few stray heifers had been done away with, and many sheep devoured, and several innocent dogs shot on suspicion, then the wise old leader pulled the pack sternly together and led it eastward.

The eastward march was long and surrounded with many perils. Sometimes there was little game, and the pack went long hungry. Sometimes it was hard to find wooded country to conceal their journeying, and sometimes, forced to take toll of the flocks of some village, the settlers swarmed out after them with a tumult of dogs and guns and curses, which by and by taught caution to the most turbulent of the whelps. Several carried shot-pellets under their hides, to teach them that their leader's prudence had reason in it. And by the time they reached those wild regions of spruce forest, lakes, and tangled watercourses where the boundaries of Maine impinge on those of New Brunswick and Quebec, they had

8o THE INVADERS acquired discipline and caution. It was an invasion formidable beyond anything the wilderness had conceived in its worst dreams that now swept on through the high solitudes to northward of the Upsalquitch and Ottanoonsis.

Among the furred and feathered dwellers of these eastern wilds there was no tradition of any such scourge as this swift, ravening pack. Of wolves there was, indeed, a sort of dim, inherited memory, but it had to do with the small eastern or cloudy'' wolf, courageous enough in its way, but not worth having nightmares about. No bear or moose had ever paid much attention to the cloudy wolf, which had been practically unknown in these parts for upwards of half a century. But rumours of the new scourge carried a chill to hearts which had hitherto had little acquaintance with fear, and a sort of obscure panic heralded the invasion all down the wild rivers and the desolate plateau lakes. So it fell that, of the ruKng tribes of the region, none for a time crossed the path of the invaders. The swarming rabbits and the abundant deer kept the pack in fair hunting,

THE INVADERS 8i and at the same time, in their astonished retreat, led it on ever eastward.

But this which they were now come to was a country of bears, and it was inevitable that the pack should fall foul of them. One day, as the eight swept noiselessly on the hot trail of a deer — noiselessly because the wise leader had taught them the need of silence in the dangerous forests of their birth, and they seldom gave tongue except when the urge of the full moon was too overpowering to be resisted — they almost ran into a huge black beast which stood directly across the trail, clawing at a rotten stump. They stopped short, spread out into a half -circle, and stood on tiptoes, the hair on their ridged necks and shoulders bristling stiffly.

The bear was equally surprised. An old, solitary, and bad-tempered individual of his highly individual race, he had neither heard of nor sensed the invasion of the terrible hybrids, nor would he have paid much attention had he sensed it ever so clearly. He was not a subject for panics. Whirling about to face the intruders, he sat back on his haunches, grumbled deeply in his throat, lifted one great paw, with its long, curved claws projecting, and, with lowered head, eyed his opponents fearlessly. He was ready for a fight, without regard to consequences. At the same time he was equally ready for peace, on condition that he was left severely alone. He was too interested in grubs and berries and rotten logs to think of seeking a fight for its own sake.

The wolves were not hungry, and they felt that the bear would prove no easy prey. In an irresolute expectancy, they waited till their leader should give signal for attack. Their leader, however, who sat on his haunches, with lolling tongue, just before the centre of the half-circle, was in no hurry to begin. He was studying the foe, and also waiting for a move. As befitted so wary a leader, he had the gift of patience.

It was a gift the bear had not. Presently, appearing to make up his mind that the gaunt strangers had no wish to interfere with his pursuit of wood-grubs, he turned once more to the stump and tore out the whole side of it at one wrench of his great forearm.

In that same instant the fiery little mongrel darted forward like a snake and snapped at his hindquarters, hoping to hamstring him. With such Hghtning swiftness, however, did he whirl about and strike at her, that she got no more than a mouthful of fur in her teeth, and only escaped that eviscerating stroke by hurling herself clean over, like a loosed spring. A long red weal on her flank showed that she had not escaped completely.

Following in a second upon her rash attack, the rest of the pack had surged forward ; but, seeing that his mate had cleared herself, the leader halted abruptly, and with a savage yelp tried to check his followers. They obeyed, for they saw what sort of a foe they had to deal with. But one, the most headlong, had gone too far. A sweeping buffet caught him fair high up on the chest. It hurled him clean back among his fellows, his neck broken and his throat torn out by the rake of those iron claws. As he lay, twitching and slavering, the leader surveyed him critically and came to a quick decision. It was no use risking, perhaps breaking, the pack upon so mighty an adversary, when their proper quarry was just ahead, and there was no desperate famine to drive them. Summoning the pack sternly to order, he led it aside at a gallop, picked up the trail of the deer again, a hundred yards further on, and left the body of the victim to whatever fate might befall it. The bear glared after them, mumbling angrily, till they were out of sight. Then he slouched over to the body, sniffed at it, turned it over with his paw, and went calmly back to his stump to look for grubs. He had no appetite for either wolf or dog.

The pack meanwhile, raging and amazed, went on, and in due time made its kill. Feasting on the warm venison, it got over its discomfiture, and its lost member was easily forgotten. But it had learned a useful lesson.

It was two days after this that the wolves came to the lake of the barrens, and from the dark covert of the fir woods stared forth wonderingly upon the first moose which they had ever seen.

Two days earlier the wolves would have regarded these two tall, ungainly shapes on the beach, black against the water, as but a kind of exaggerated deer, and would have flown at them without hesitation. But now they remembered the bear. They did not quite trust the colour of these two high-shouldered, long-muzzled strangers, with their wide splay hooves and indifferent air. They waited for the signal of their wary leader, and that signal, again, the wary leader was in no hurry to give. He was imcertain what prowess, what unexpected energies, might lurk in these bulks that seemed so like and yet so unlike deer. But when at last the two moose, daunted by the unknown, suddenly plunged into the water and swam off through the orange glow, he concluded they were a quarry to be hunted. Alone he stalked forth upon the open beach, gazed fixedly after the fugitives for some moments, till he made sure where they were bound for, and then stared appraisingly up and down the shores, as if calculating the circuit of the water. Having apparently decided which would be the shortest way around, he stalked back into the shadows. A moment later the pack was under way at full run, making for the head of the lake, some seven or eight miles distant.

The pair of moose, in the meantime, gained the opposite shore and stalked up.

black and dripping, beside the willows. But they did not stop there. The fever of change was upon them, and when a moose gets going, he is liable to go far. With their long, shambling trot, which seems so effortless, yet so inexorably eats up the miles, they followed along the stream till the orange gleam was left far behind, and the bushy levels of the barren began to lift into low, rounded uplands, sparsely wooded. They had but one purpose — to put themselves as far as possible from those flitting green eyes and padding footfalls of the black fir woods by the lake.

They little guessed that the path of their indignant flight was converging toward that of the green eyes and padding feet.

Ill

It was a night of early moonrise, and the moon near the full. Far back among the low uplands the stream broadened out into a series of wide, still reaches that formed practically a sort of winding lake. At an abrupt elbow of this lake-like expansion,

" Gazed fixedly after the fugitives for some moments."

where a clump of tall water-ash, poplar, and elderberry thicket made a little island in a space of open wild meadow, lay hidden two hunters. They had come up from the coast to eastward, crossed over the height of land, and made their way down into this remote valley, looking for moose.

Both men carried rifles. One, a gigantic figure of a man, and from his dress obviously the guide, carried also a light axe and a long roll of birch bark shaped something like a trumpet. This was the season for moose-calling.

Seating themselves with their backs to the trunk of a big water-ash, and in such a position that they were fairly hidden, while commanding a free view of all approaches to their ambush, the two made themselves as comfortable as possible for a long, motionless wait. After some ten or fifteen minutes of a stillness which would strain the nerves of any one not trained to it, Adam Moore, the giant guide, lifted the birch-bark tube to his lips and sounded through it the strange call of the cow moose, harsh and formless, but indescribably wild and lonely — the very voice, as it seemed, of the untamed solitudes.

It came lingeringly from the guide's cunning lips.

"Faith, Adam," murmured Rawson, "but youVe got a fetching note!"

Moore allowed himself a faint grin of acknowledgment, for this lean, hard-bitten, cool-eyed Englishman, who had hunted big game in every corner of the earth, was one of the very few sportsmen whose commendation he cared a farthing for. After a few moments' pause, he sounded his appeal again, with added poignancy. Then he lowered the birchen tube, laid it across his knees, and waited.

There was not a breath of air. The unstirring, soundless wilderness seemed as if it had been enchanted into glass under the spell of the blue-white moon. But suddenly there came a far-off sound of crashing branches. It drew nearer swiftly.

"I thought that would fetch him, Adam," murmured Rawson, no louder than a breath of air in the poplar leaves.

He lifted his rifle and rose softly to one knee.

A moment later Moore laid a great hand softly on his arm.

"Queer, that," he whispered — "there^'s two coming !"

Then from the thick growths across the meadow, perhaps three hundred yards away, burst the two fugitives. Even at that distance one could see that they were sore pressed and spent. The cow, in particular, staggered as she came on. The antlers of the bull were magnificent, but Rawson saw only the splendid beast's distress, and lowered his gun involuntarily.

"I can't make it out," muttered the guide, rising cautiously to his feet behind the elder bushes.

The fugitives came straight on, making for the refuge of the water-ash grove, heedless of what perils it might hold for them in their terror of the unknown menace that pursued. Half-way across the meadow lay a fallen trunk, carried there and stranded by some past freshet. The tall bull took it in his stride, but the cow, apparently half blind with exhaustion, stumbled over it, fell forward on her muzzle with a bleating groan, and lay as if she no longer cared what Fate might bring her.

Finding his mate no longer at his side, the bull halted abruptly, swung back, lowered his huge head and sniffed at her solicitously. He pushed her with his muzzle; he even struck her smartly with the sharp points of his antlers, striving to force her to further effort. Then, apparently making up his mind that his efforts were vain, he stood over her and stared back along the trail by which they had come.

^^He's game, all right!" muttered Rawson, his eyes aglow with admiration.

The next moment the undergrowth across the meadow parted with a rush, and gaunt forms came leaping into the moonlight.

Wolves! Timber wolves!'' exclaimed Moore in a startled voice. He had been west, and knew the breed. Eight of them ! He flung down his birch-bark horn and snatched up his rifle.

Mad from their long chase, the wolves did not hesitate a second, but sprang straight on their quarry, their grey leader half a length to the front. As they came, their bared white fangs and cold eyes gleaming in the moonlight, the waiting bull never flinched. At the instant when the leader sprang for his throat, he reared, towering colossal over the onslaught, and struck out furiously with his knife-edged hooves. Unprepared for this novel defence, the leader, in mid-spring, caught that pile-driver blow full in the face. He went down under it, with his whole head crushed in.

The next second came the crash of Rawson's rifle. Another wolf dropped. But the rest were already leaping upon the gallant bull's flank and shoulders, striving to pull him down. Raging at the sight, the Englishman rushed forward to his defence, firing once more, with what effect he did not stop to notice, and then swinging his rifle like a club. Moore, unable to shoot lest he should strike Rawson, dropped his rifle, swung his axe, and followed with huge, leaping strides.

Rawson was bringing his butt down across the back of the nearest wolf, erect and tearing at the bull's neck, when from the tail of his eye he saw a smaller, slimmer beast darting at him from the side. Instinctively he shouted "Down! Down!" and delivered a spasmodic kick at his assailant, catching it under the jaw. Had he been less fully occupied with what was going on before him, he would have been much astonished to see this one of his adversaries drop its tail between its legs with a yelp, slink around behind him, and stand staring in bewildered submission. The mongrel had been recalled suddenly to her ancient allegiance by the command in a master's voice.

The hybrids, with no longer their wise pack-leader to teach them prudence, and maddened by this unlooked-for interference with their kill, now turned a portion of their fury upon their new opponents. For a moment Rawson had his hands full to defend himself against the leaps of a flaming-eyed beast, whom he could only fight off with short, desperate jabs, having no room for a conclusive blow. At the same time, however, at the other side of the melees the giant guide was swinging his axe with swift effect, and the invaders were reduced to three. The bull, his neck and shoulders streaming with blood, but suddenly freed from close pressure, was lashing out once more with his battering fore-hooves in a blind fashion that made him a peril to friend and foe alike. As luck would have it, however, he grazed the haunches of Rawson's adversary, causing the brute to whirl upon him with a snarl. The diversion gave Rawson a chance for a full, swinging blow, ending that quarrel. Of the remaining two wolves, one, springing up sideways at the guide's face, was met by a low sweep of the axe, which shore clean through his loins. At the sound of his dying yelp, the survivor leaped backwards, wheeled, and fled from the lost battle. As he ran, lengthening himself out belly to earth, Moore swung his axe again. Launched with the unerring aim of the expert backwoodsman, it hurtled through the air, swooped, and clove the fugitive's haunches. The guide strode calmly forward, recovered his weapon, and with a tap on the crown put the writhing beast out of its misery.

By this time the cow, having somewhat recovered from her exhaustion, was struggling to her feet. Seeing this, the bull turned threateningly upon his rescuers. Rawson jumped away just in time to avoid a savage thrust.

"It's evident we're not wanted here any longer," he laughed, turning to go back to the grove. As he did so, the mongrel, hitherto unnoticed because she had made herself so discreetly inconspicuous, ranged up alongside him with a confiding humiHty that was unmistakable. The Englishman eyed her for a second or two in amazement, then remembered and understood.

"You get out of this, and be thankful you get out with a whole skin!" he ordered coldly. "You're a turncoat!" He was about to enforce his command with the butt of his gun, but the guide, coming up at that moment, intervened.

"No," said he decisively, "don't drive her away. I'm glad you've refused her. I'll keep her myself. She'll be worth a dozen of your ordinary brutes that have never had the spunk to kick over the traces. I reckon she's leamt her lesson, an' she won't run wild again."

FORCED out of his old dwelling, which had been both commodious and retired, Hackee, the striped chipmunk, moved indignantly over to the next hillside, and chose a site for his new home near the south face of the dilapidated stone wall which separated the beech wood from the upland pasture.

He had had a peculiarly exasperating experience. Quite by accident, an ill-conditioned but obstinate mongrel terrier from the farm down in the valley had found the narrow entrance to his underground abode, and had started to dig him out. This, of course, was a vain undertaking for any dog, for not only was the entrance tube several yards in length and leading a good three feet below the surface, but the central chamber, or dwelling proper, had another exit, yards away, by which Hackee had come out at his leisure, to perch on a near-by fence-rail and shriek chattering curses at the fooHsh dog. Having a strain of dachshund among the many which went to his pedigree, the terrier had really done a fine piece of burrowing before he realized the futility of his efforts, and backed out of the hole, with eyes and fur full of dirt, to give ear to Hackee's shrill insults, and trot off with assumed indifference in search of some more advantageous enterprise.

This had been late in the afternoon. On the edge of evening, a family of skunks had come by, and had at once adopted the roomy burrow which the terrier had excavated for them. Lazy burrowers themselves, the skunks were no fools. They knew how to profit by a good thing when it came their way. They had continued the work of the dog till they reached Hackee's central chamber. To Hackee's voluble and stuttering wrath, they had taken possession of it at once, enlarging it to suit their dimensions. They were certainly no company for a chipmunk. There was nothing for it but to yield place to these lazy but formidable invaders. Hackee and his whole family had taken themselves off, stealing through the violet dusk with a silent diffidence quite unlike their chattering daylight audacity. They knew that the dusk was peculiarly dangerous for them; so they had scattered at once, seeking refuge in the burrows of friendly neighbours, or in nooks which their daylight wanderings had revealed to them. It had been a nerve-trying night for Hackee, trembling in a hastily enlarged mouse-hole dangerously near the fox-and-weasel-haunted surface. As soon as the full pink tide of sunrise had driven the night prowlers to their dens, he had set himself to the securing of new quarters. For none knew better than he that, to a ground-squirrel with no underground retreat, this sunny hillside, these cheerful, tranquil beech woods, these open pastures with their calm-eyed cattle, were a region of imminent and deadly hazard.

Pending a decision as to the exact spot where he would begin to sink his tunnel. Hackee kept along the old stone wall, because, with its chinks and crannies, it was more likely than any other path to offer him a hiding-place in case of emergency. In the early sunshine there were many other chipmunks abroad, out for their morning

H sip of dew. They were playing or foraging among the leaves, racing in utter abandon of mirth up and down the old wall, or sitting up alertly to chirp and chatter to each other their satisfaction at the promise of a fine day. But Hackee felt himself quite alone among them. He knew that each of them had a safe burrow close at hand. He had no chattering or chirping to do. He was a thing apart, a chipmunk without a hole. And all his wits were anxiously, concentratedly, on the alert against the perils which he knew might assail him from earth or sky at any instant.

He was not even hungry, for the moment, because his anxiety was so absorbing. Therefore it was that he, being the most vigilant, was first to catch sight of a pigeon-hawk which came stealthily through the branches of a great birch tree near the wall, and dropped like a fly-catcher in the -hope of capturing one of the morning revellers. But Hackee's piercing chirrup of alarm, ere he whisked into a crevice, had been enough. Every chipmunk heard, and dodged with a celerity which even that swift hawk could not match. The alarm cry passed the length of the wall. The hawk pounced this way and that, zigzagging with a speed to confuse the eye. But not a chipmunk could he catch; and presently, in the sulks, he sailed off to try his luck with less nimble game.

When he was gone. Hackee whisked out from between the stones, ran on some fifty feet further, and stopped to peer about him carefully. This seemed a likely spot for his purpose, and it was not overcrowded. On the pasture side of the wall a big chipmunk came out from a hole about three feet distant, whisked up the stones, and scolded insolently at the stranger. But Hackee was not insulted. He was a stranger, and he knew he must take the consequences. He proposed to get over being a stranger just as quickly as possible, and to this end he decided to establish himself just opposite his insulter, on the other side of the stone wall. Here the beech trees were scattered, and the sward was close and firm, such as he loved, and the autumn sunlight lay warm under the wall.

Some three or four feet from the wall he marked a spreading, prickly bush of juniper, under which, as he calculated, he might loo A DIGGER OF TUBES begin his digging operations without much fear of interruption. All seemed secure. No hawk or fox was to be seen. The red squirrels and the blue-jays wrangled merrily and carelessly in the trees — a sure sign that there was no marauder about. Along the wall and on the close, gossamery turf at either side, other chipmunks gambolled or foraged or scratched at the sod with their clever little hand-like paws. And a soft, irregular tonk-tink, tonka-tink, tonkle came from the line of red-and-white cows loitering up to the pasture from the milking-shed.

Hackee gave a chirrup of satisfaction, and was on the very point of jumping down from the wall, when a piercing chirr of alarm stiffened him to stone. Everywhere, on the instant, he saw chipmunk after chipmunk flash frantically to its hole, shrieking the great danger signal as it vanished.

For half a second Hackee's heart stood still, for this, according to the signals, was one of the most dreaded enemies of his tribe — a weasel. From this enemy, a swift pursuer and a tireless, implacable tracker, there was but one safe refuge — the chipmunk's hole, too narrow at the entrance for a weasel to squeeze himself into. And Hackee had no hole to take refuge in. He knew th?tt he would be smelt out immediately if he tried to hide in some cranny of the wall. For some precious moments he stood there alone in the perilous world, his sharp stripes of black and cream vivid on the foxy red of his cheeks and sides. Suddenly the weasel slipped into view, emerging upon the top of the wall, a long, low, sinuous, deadly apparition, with a vicious, pointed face and cruel eyes. He was not more than ten feet away.

Hackee came to himself. He bounded into the air as if galvanized, came down on the pasture side of the wall, and slipped like an eel down into the burrow of the stranger chipmunk. The weasel was so close at his twinkling heels that Hackee heard the snap of jaws just behind the tip of his tail.

Exasperated at this escape when he had felt sure of an easy kill, the weasel strove, with a snarl, to force his triangular head down the narrow entrance. As he knew, however, from many a previous effort, this was a waste of time. He presently gave it up, and darted off on the trail of a rabbit

I02 A DIGGER OF TUBES which was unlucky enough to go hopping by at that moment.

Hackee knew well enough that, as a stranger to the burrow, and especially as an invader from another colony, he need by no means look for a welcome in his forced refuge. He kept near the entrance, therefore, trembling and making himself small, and hoping that the proprietor would not appear. But it was a vain hope. Within a half minute the proprietor did appear, and rushed at Hackee open-mouthed with a most inhospitable squeal. Hackee understood very well that etiquette required him to withdraw from that hole at once. But etiquette was of little concern for him so long as he thought the weasel might be waiting outside. He met the attack with the courage of necessity, and for a few seconds the narrow confines of the tube were filled with chirrups and squeals and flying foxy fur.

Suddenly the proprietor, indignant at this refusal of Hackee's to go out and feed the foe, withdrew to seek reinforcements. Hackee understood what his withdrawal meant. He had no wish to fight the whole family. Slipping back to the entrance, he stuck the very tip of his nose out and sniffed. The taint of weasel was on the air, but it was certainly disappearing. Very cautiously he put his whole head out and peered around with keen, wary eyes. The weasel was nowhere in sight. For a little he waited there, half in and half out. Then came a scurrying of feet behind him in the depths of the burrow. He darted forth discreetly and whisked into a hole in the wall. The next moment the inhospitable household came forth one by one, and began chattering uncomplimentary things about him which he did not think it worth his while replying to. Slyly peering forth with one eye from his hiding-place, he noticed that all this chatter failed to bring back the weasel. This being proof enough that the coast was now clear, he whisked out, jumped over the wall, and under the shelter of the juniper bush where he proposed to have his front door.