Wilderness Ways

the fisher is cunning and patient; he can catch what he will. Lhoks the panther is strong and tireless; nothing can get away from him, not even the great moose. And Mooween the be

hides in. My nose is worse; it cannot smell Seksagadagee the grouse, though I walk over him asleep in the snow. And my feet make a noise in the leaves, so that Moktaques the rabbit h

for you can neither see nor hear him. But Clote Scarpe remembered Moktaques the rabbit also, and gave him two coats, a brown one for summer and a white one for winter. Consequently he is harder than ever to see when he is quiet; and Upweekis must still

of the darkness just behind your wind-break of boughs. You jump to your feet and grab your rifle; but Simmo, who is down on his knees before the fire frying pork, only turn

h. But if Upweekis is there-and he probably is-you do not see him. He is a shadow among the shadows. Only there is this difference: shadows move no bushes. As you watch, a fir-tip stirs; a bit of snow drops down. You gaze intently at the spot. Then out of the deep shadow two living coals are suddenly kindled. They grow larger and larger, glowing, flashing, burning holes into your e

e what you are. You back away toward the fire. He scampers off in a fright, but presently comes hopping after you. Watch the underbrush behind him sharply. In a moment it stirs stealthily, as if a shadow were moving it; and there is the lynx

He cannot see nor hear nor smell his game; but he saw a bit of snow fly a moment ago, and knows that it came from Moktaques' big pads. Don't

ut through the woods, so sharp and fierce that no rabbit's nerves can stand it close at hand and be still. Moktaques jumps straight up

er catches anything unless he blunders onto it. That is why he wanders so much in winter and passes twenty rabbits before he catches one. So when he knows that Moktaques is near, watching the light, but remaining

u strain your eyes, and watch and listen, you feel the coals upon you again from another place; and there they are, under a bush on your left, creeping closer and blazing deep red. They disappear suddenly as the lynx turns his head, only to reappear and fascinate you from another point. So he plays with you as if you w

lands for the rabbits that swarm in the thickets, and to rear his young in seclusion. You find his tracks there all about, and the marks of his killing; but though you watch and prowl all day and come home in the twilight, you will learn little

ecting it, and caught that one by accident, and missed the partridge that burst out of the snow under his very feet,-still Upweekis himself remains only a shadow of the woods. Once, after a glorious long tramp on his trail, I found the spot where he had been sle

it a few times on the rock till the shell cracked, then open it with his teeth and devour the morsel inside. He ate leisurely, tasting each clam critically before swallowing, and sitting up often to wash his whiskers or to look out over the lake. A hermit thrush sang marvelously sweet above him; the twilight colors glowed deep and deeper in the water below, where his shadow was clearly eating clams also, in the midst of heaven's splendor.-Altogether a pretty scene, and a moment of peace that I still love to remember. I quite forgot that Musquash is a villain. But the tragedy was near, as it alw

pen spot for anything that might choose to come and get it. I was hoping for a bear, and so climbed above the ground that he might no

t, and raced up the incline, almost to my feet, where he sprang to a branch and sat chattering hysterically between two fears. After him came a pine marten, following swiftly, catching the scent of his game, not from the bark or the ground, but apparently from the air. Scarcely had he jumped upon my tree when there was a screech and a rush in the underbrush just below him, and out of the bushes ca

yed or snapped, and the lucivee stopped as if struck, crouching lower and lower against the tree, his big yellow expressionless eyes glaring s

make me move, and scolding me soundly for disturbing the peace of the woods. In summer Upweekis is a solitary creature, rearing his young away back on the wildest burned lands, where game is plenty and where it is almost impossible to find him except by accident. In winter also he roams alone for the most part; but occasionally, when rabbit

row escape from them. He had a dog, Grip, a big brindled cur, of whose prowess in killing "varmints" he was always bragging, calling him the b

n the lynxes came creeping and snarling towards the man, who backed away, shouting and swinging his axe. He killed one by a lucky blow, as it sprang for his chest. The others drove him to his own door; but he would never have reached it, so he told me, but for a long strip of open land that he had cleared back into the woods. He would face and charge t

spare, but under their fearful hunger is the old beastly instinct for each one to grab all for himself; so they fall promptly to teeth and claws before the ga

the largest I have ever seen. It was two days old; but it led in my direct

of this kind of traveling and the trails joined another trail,-that of a wounded caribou from the barrens. His tracks showed that he had been traveling with difficulty on three legs. Here was a place where

the game passed. Then the struggle began. First, there was a trampled place in the snow where the bull had taken a stand and the big cats went creeping about him, waiting for a chance to spring all together. He broke away from that, but the three-legged gallop speedily exhausted

out each other snarling, looking for an opening, but too well fed to care for a fight just then. Two or three foxes, a pine marten, and a fisher moved ceaselessly in and out, sniffing hungrily, and waiting for a chance to seize every scrap of bone or skin that was left unguarded for an instant. Above them a dozen moose birds kept the same watch vigilantly. As I stole nearer, hoping to ge

ot seen, stalked up to the carcass and put his fore paws upon it, and turned his savage head in my direction. Evidently other lynxes had come in

ld creep forward a step or two, then crouch in the snow, like a cat warming her feet, and stare at me unblinkingly for a few moments. Then another hitch or two, which brought them nearer, and another stare. I could not look at one steadily, to make him waver; for the moment my eyes were upon him the others hitched closer; and alread

. On the way back to camp I stopped for a caribou head and skin, which I had cached on the edge of a barren the morning before. The weather had changed; a bitter cold wind b

the cunning creature whose trail you find so often running side by side with your own, and who follows you if you have any trace of game about you, hour after hour through the wilderness, without ever showing himself in the light. Then I whirled s

n you surprise him, and stared at me steadily. When I went on again

r, showing himself openly on the trail behind me. I turned into an old swamping road, which gave me a bit of open before and behind. Then I saw him occasionally on either side, or crouching half hid until I passed. Clearly he w

untouched, but crouched again instantly, showing all his teeth, snarling horribly. Three times I swung at him warily. Each time he jumped aside and watched f

re hidden. He left the open trail; and once, when I saw him well behind me, his head was raised high, listening. I threw down the caribou head to keep him busy, and ran for camp. In a few

r from his enemies. Opposite my island camp, where I halted a little while, in a summer's roving, was a burned ridge; that is, it had been burned over years before; now it was a perfect tangle, with many an open sunny spot, however, where berries grew by handfuls. Rabbits swarmed there, and grouse

s blowing down the hill, I walked almost up to a bull caribou without seeing him. He was watching my approach curiously, only his eyes, ears, and horns showing above the tangle where he stood. Down in the coverts it was always intensely still, with a stillness that I took good care not to break. So when the great brute whirled with a snort and a tremendous crash of bushes, almost unde

thicket, and came to an open stony place, with a sharp drop of five or six feet to dense cover below. The odor came from this cover, so I jumped down; when-yeow, karrrr, pft-pft! Almost under my feet a gray thing leaped away sn

down near them they had been scared into showing their temper; else I had never seen them in the underbrush. Fortunately for me, the

d them, just a quiver of leaves here, a snarl there, and then a rush away, until they doubled back towards the rocky place, where, parting the underbrush cautiously, I saw a dark hole among the rocks of a little opening. The roots of an upturned tree arched over the hole, making a broad doorway. In t

the intruder in some way; and they would all keep close in the den. I found a place, some dozen yards above, where it would be

ross my knees. Then I would watch the kittens a little while, and kill them also. I wanted their skins, all soft and fine with their first fur. And they were too big and fierce to think of taking them alive. My vacation was over. Simmo was already packing up,

cat uses so seldom, yet must use powerfully when the time comes. The second lucivee came out of the shadow a moment later and leaped upon the fallen tree where he could better watch the hillside below. For half an hour or more, while I waited expectantly, both animals moved restles

kill. She walked to the doorway of her den, crossed it back and forth two or three times, still carrying the hare as if the lust of blood were raging within her and she could not drop her prey even to her own little ones, which followed her hungrily, one on either side. Once, as she turned toward me, one of the kittens seized a leg of the hare and jerked it savagely. The mother whirled on him, growling deep down in her throat; the youngster backe

efore, rubbing softly against her legs, or sitting up to rub their whiskers against hers-a tardy thanks for the breakfast she had provided. The fierce old mother too seemed altogether different. She arched her back against the roots, purring loudly, while the little ones arched and purred agai

her different. Upweekis could be gentle also, it seemed, and give herself for her little ones. And a bit of tenderness, like that which lay so unconscious under my eyes, gets hold of a man,

with a new interest for a cry in the night which tells me that Moktaques the rabbit is