From the Teeth of the Tide
HITHERTO, ever since he had been old enough to leave the den, the mother bear had been leading her fat black cub inland, among the tumbled rocks and tangled spruce and pine, teaching him to dig for tender roots and nose out grubs and beetles from the rotting stumps. To-day, feeling the need of saltier fare, she led him in the opposite direction, down through a cleft in the cliffs, and out across the great, red, glistening mud-flats left bare by the ebb of the terrific Fundy tides.
From the secure warmth of his den the cub had heard, faint and far off, the waves thundering along the bases of the cliffs, when the tide was high and the great winds drew heavily in from sea. The sound had always made him afraid; and to-day, though there was no wind, and the tide was so far out that it made no noise but a soft whisper, silken and persuasive, he held back with babyish timidity, till his mother brought him to his senses with an unceremonious cuff on the side of the head. With a squall of grieved surprise he picked himself up, shaking his head as if he had a bee in his ear, and then made haste to follow obediently, close at his mother’s huge black heels.
From the break in the cliffs, where the bears came down, ran a ledge of shelving rocks on a long, gradual slant across the flats toward the edge of low water. The tide was nearing the last of the ebb; and now, the slope of the shore being very gradual, and the difference between high and low water in these turbulent channels something between forty and fifty feet, the lapsing fringes of the ebb, yellow-tawny with silt, were a good three-quarters of a mile away from the foot of the cliffs. The vast spaces between were smooth, oily, copper-red mud, shining and treacherous in the sun with the narrow black outcrop of the ledge drawn across on so gentle a slant that before it reached the water it was running almost on a parallel with the shoreline.
Along the rocky ledge the old bear led the way, pausing to nose at a patch of seaweed here and there or to glance shrewdly into the shallow pools among the rocks. The cub obediently followed her example, though doubtless with no idea of what he might hope to find. But the upper stretches of the ledge, near high-water mark, offered nothing to reward their quest, having been dry for several hours, and long ago thoroughly gone over by earlier foragers. So the bears pushed on down toward the lower stretches, where the ledges were still wet, and the long, black-green weed-masses still dripping, and where the limpet-covered protuberances of rock still oozed and sparkled. With her iron-hard claws the mother bear scraped off a quantity of these limpets, and crushed them between her jaws with relish, swallowing the salty juices. The cub tried clumsily to imitate her, but the limpets defied his too tender claws, so he ran to his mother, thrust her great head aside, and greedily licked up a share of her scrapings. The sea flavour tickled his palate, but the rough, hard shells exasperated him. They hurt his gums, so that he merely rolled them over in his mouth, sucked at them a few moments, then spat them out indignantly. His mother thereupon forsook the unsatisfactory limpets, and went prowling on toward the water’s edge in search of more satisfying fare. As they left the limpets, a gaunt figure in gray homespuns, carrying a rifle, appeared on the crest of the cliffs above, caught sight of them, and hurriedly took cover behind an overhanging pine.
The young woodsman’s first impulse was to try a long shot at the hulking black shape so conspicuous out on the ledge, against the bright water. He wanted a bearskin, even if the fur was not just then in prime condition. But more particularly he wanted the cub, to tame and play with if it should prove amenable, and to sell, ultimately, for a good amount, to some travelling show. On consideration, he decided to lie in wait among the rocks till the rising tide should drive the bears back to the upland. He exchanged his steel-nosed cartridges for the more deadly mushroom-tipped, filled his pipe, and lay back comfortably against the pine trunk, to watch, through the thin green frondage, the foraging of his intended prey.
The farther they went down the long slant of the ledge, the more interested the bears became. Here the crows and gulls had not had time to capture all the prizes. There were savoury blue-shelled mussels clinging under the tips of the rocks; plump, spiral whelks between the oozy tresses of the seaweed; orange starfish and bristly sea-urchins in the shallow pools. All these dainties had shells that the cub’s young teeth could easily crush, and they yielded meaty morsels that made beetles and grubs seem very meagre fare. Moreover, in the salty bitter of this sea-fruit there was something marvelously stimulating to the appetite. From pool to pool the old bear wandered on, lured ever by richer prizes just ahead; and the cub, stuffed till his little stomach was like a black furry ball, no longer frisked and tumbled, but waddled along beside her with eyes of shining expectancy. As long as he was not too full to walk, he was not too full to eat such delicacies as these. The fascinating quest led them on and on till at last they found themselves at the water’s edge.
By this time they had travelled a long way from the cleft in the cliffs by which they had come down from the uplands. A good half-mile of shining mud separated them, in a direct line, from the cliff base. And the woodsman on the height, as he watched them, muttered to himself: “Ef that old b’ar don’t look out, the tide’s a-goin’ to ketch her afore she knows what she’s about! Most wish I’d ’a’ socked it to her afore she’d got so fur out–Jiminy! She’s seed her mistake now! The tide’s turned.”
While bear and cub had their noses and paws busy in a little dry pool, on a sudden a long, shallow, muddy-crested wave had come hissing up over their feet and filled the pool to the brim with its yellow flood. Lifting her head sharply, the old bear glanced at the far-off cliffs, and at the mounting tide. Instantly realizing the peril, she started back at a slow, lumbering amble up the long, long path by which they had come; and the cub started too at a brave gallop–not behind her, for he was too much afraid of the hissing yellow wave, but close at her side, between her sheltering form and the shore. He felt that she could in some way ward off or subdue the cold and terrifying monster.
For perhaps two minutes the cub struggled on gamely, although, owing to the fact that at this point their path was almost parallel with the water, the fugitives made no perceptible gain, and the rising wave was on their heels every instant. Then the greedy feeding produced its effect. The little fellow’s wind gave out completely. With a whimper of pain and fright he dropped back upon his haunches and waited for his mother to save him.
The old bear turned, bounced back, and cuffed him so bruskly that he found breath enough to utter a loud squall and go stumbling forward for another score of yards. Then he gave out, and sank upon his too-distended stomach, whimpering piteously.
This time the mother seemed to perceive that his case was serious, and her anxious wrath subsided. She licked him assiduously for a few seconds, whining encouragement, till at last he got upon his feet again, trembling. The yellow flood was now lapping on the ledge all about them. But a rod or two farther on the rocks bulged up a couple of feet above the surrounding slope. Thrusting the exhausted youngster ahead of her with nose and paws, the old bear gained this point of temporary vantage; and then, worried and frightened, sat down upon her haunches and stared all around her, as if trying to decide what should be done. The cub lay flat, with legs outstretched and mouth wide open, panting.
The tide, meanwhile, was mounting so swiftly that in a few moments the rise of rocks had become almost an island. The ledge was covered before them as well as behind, and the only way still open lay straight over the glistening mud. The old bear looked at it, and whined, knowing its treacheries. And the woodsman, watching with eager interest from the cliffs, muttered:
“Take to it, ye old bug-eater! Ther’ ain’t nawthin’ else left fer ye to do’!”
This was apparently the conclusion of the old bear herself; for now, after licking and nuzzling the cub for a few seconds till he stood up, she stepped boldly off the rock and started out over the coppery flats. The cub, having apparently recovered his wind, followed briskly–probably much heartened by the fact that his progress was in a direction away from the alarming waves.
There was desperate need of haste, for when they left the rocky lift the tide was already slipping around upon the flats beyond it. Nevertheless, the old bear moved with deliberation. She could not hurry the cub; and she had to choose her path. By some instinct, or else by some peculiar keenness of observation, she seemed to detect the “honey-pots,” or deep pockets of slime, that lay concealed beneath the uniformly shining surface of the mud; for here she would make an aimless detour, losing many precious seconds, and there she would side-step suddenly, for several paces, and shift her course to a new parallel. Outside the “honey-pots,” the mud was soft and tenacious to a depth varying from a few inches to a couple of feet, but with a hard clay foundation beneath the slime. Through this clinging red ooze the old bear, with her huge strength, made her way without difficulty; but the cub, in a few moments, began to find himself terribly hampered. His fur collected the mud. His little paws sank easily, but at each step it grew harder to withdraw them. At last, chancing to stagger aside from his mother’s spacious tracks, he sank to his belly in the rim of a “honey-pot.”
Panic-stricken, he floundered vainly, his nose high in the air and his eyes shut tight, while his mother, unconscious of what had happened, ploughed doggedly onward. Presently he opened his eyes. His mother was now perhaps ten or a dozen feet ahead, apparently deserting him. Right behind, lapping up to his very tail, was the crawling wave. A heart-broken bawl burst from his throat.
At that cry the old bear came dashing back, red mud half-way up her flanks and plastered all over her shaggy chest. Taking in the situation at a glance, she seized the cub by the nape of the neck with her teeth, and tried to drag him free. But he squealed so lamentably that she realized that the hide would yield before the mud would. The attempt had taken time, however; and the tide was now well up in the fur of his back. Thrusting her paw down beneath his haunches, she tore him clear with a mighty wrench and a loud sucking of the baffled mud. That stroke sent him head over heels some ten feet nearer safety. By the time he had picked himself up, pawing fretfully at the mud that bedaubed his face and half blinded him, his mother was close behind him, nosing him along and lifting him forward skilfully with her fore paws.
The slope of the flats was now so gradual as to be almost imperceptible; and the tide, therefore, seemed to be racing in with fiercer haste, as if in wrath at being so long balked of its prey. Engrossed in her efforts to push the cub forward, the mother now lost some of her fine discrimination in regard to “honey-pots.” She pushed the cub straight into one; but jerked him back unceremoniously before the mud had time to get any grip upon him. Pausing for a moment to scrutinize the oozy expanse, she thrust the little animal furiously along to the left, searching for a safe passage. Before she could find one, however, the tide was upon them, their feet splashing in the thin yellow wavelets.
A broken soap-box, tossed overboard from some ship, came washing up, and stranded just before them. With a whimper of delight, as if he thought the box a safe refuge, the cub scrambled upon it; but his mother ruthlessly tumbled him off and hustled him onward, floundering and splashing.
“Ye’ll hev to swim fer it, Old Woman!” growled the now excited watcher behind the pine-tree on the cliff.
As the creeping flood by this time overspread the ooze for a couple of yards ahead of them, the mother could no longer discriminate as to what lay beneath it. She could do nothing now but dash ahead blindly. Catching up the cub between her jaws, in a grip that made him squeal, she launched herself straight toward shore, hardly daring to let her feet rest an instant where they touched. Fortune favoured her in this rush. She got ahead of the tide. She gained upon it, perhaps twice her body’s length. Then she paused, to drop the cub. But the pause was fatal. She began to sink instantly. She had come upon a “honey-pot” of stiffer consistency than the rest, which had sustained her while she was in swift motion, but now, in return for that support, clutched her in a grip the more inexorable. With all her huge strength she strained to wrench herself clear. But in vain. She had no purchase. There was nothing to put forth her strength upon. In her terror and despair she squealed aloud, with her snout high in air as if appealing to the blank, blue, empty sky. The cub, terror-stricken, strove to clamber upon her back.
That harsh cry of hers, however, was but the outburst of one moment’s weakness. The next moment the indomitable old bear was striving silently and systematically to release herself. She would wrench one great fore arm clear, lift it high, and feel about for a solid foundation beneath the ooze. Failing in this, she would yield that paw to the enemy again, tear the other loose, and feel about for a foothold in another direction. At the same time she drew out her body to its full length, and lay flat, so that she might gain as much support as possible by distributing her weight. Because of this sagacity, and because the mire at this point had more substance than in most of the other “honey-pots,” she made a good fight, and almost, but not quite, held her own. By the time the tide had once more overtaken her she had sunk but a little way, and was still far from giving up the unequal struggle.
Yet for all the great beast’s strength, and valour, and devotion, there could have been but one end to that brave battle, and mother and cub would have disappeared, in a few minutes more, under the stealthy, whispering onrush of the flood, had not the whimsical Providence–or Hazard–of the Wild come curiously to their aid. Among the jetsam of those restless Fundy tides almost anything that will float may appear, from a matchbox to a barn. What appeared just now was a big spruce log, escaped from the boom on some river emptying into the bay. It came softly wallowing in, lipped by the little waves, and passed close by the nose of the old bear, where she struggled with the water up to her shoulders.
Quick as thought she flashed up a heavy paw, caught the log by one end, and pulled the butt under her chest. The purchase thus gained enabled her to free the other paw–and in a few seconds more the weight of the fore part of her body was on the end of the log, forcing it down to the mud. Greedy as that mud was, it was yet incapable of engulfing a full-grown spruce timber quickly enough to defeat the bear’s purpose. Stretching far forward on the submerged log, she strained her muscles to their utmost, and slowly drew her hind quarters free from the deadly grip that held them. Then, seizing in her jaws the cub, which was swimming and whimpering beside her, she carefully felt her way farther along the log, and sat down upon it to rest, clutching the youngster closely in one great fore arm.
Not till the tide had risen nearly to her neck did the mother move again. She was recovering her strength. Utterly daunted by the peril of the “honey-pots,” she chose rather to trust the tide itself. At last, catching the cub again by the back of the neck, she swam for the shore. The tide was now within a couple of hundred yards from the bases of the cliffs, and lapping upon solid, sun-baked clay. The strong flood helping her, she swam fast, though laboriously by reason of the burden in her teeth. Soon her hinder feet struck ground–but she was afraid to trust it, and nervously drew them up beneath her. A few moments more and she felt undeniably firm footing; whereupon she plunged forward with a rush, and never paused, even to drop the squirming cub, till she was above high-water mark.
When, at last, she set the little beast down, she was in such a hurry to get away from the shore and back into the secure green woods that she would not trust him to follow her, as usual, but drove him on ahead, as fast as he could move, toward the cleft in the cliffs. As they turned up the rugged trail her haste relaxed, and she went more slowly, but still driving the cub ahead of her, that she might be quite sure that the “honey-pots” would not reach up and clutch at him again.
As the muddy, weary, bedraggled, pathetic-looking pair passed within tempting range of the pine-tree on the cliff-top, the woodsman instinctively threw forward his rifle. But the next moment he dropped it, with a slight flush, and gave a quick glance around him as if he feared that unseen eyes might have taken note of the gesture.
“Hell!” he muttered, “I’d ’a’ been no better’n a murderer, ’f I’d ’a’ gone an’ plugged the Old Girl now!”
The Fight at the Wallow
I
FAR to the northeast of Ringwaak Hill, just beyond that deep, far-rimmed lake which begets the torrent of the Ottanoonsis, rise the bluff twin summits of Old Walquitch, presiding over an unbroken and almost untrodden wilderness. Some way up the southeasterly flank of the loftier and more butting of the twin peaks ran a vast, open shelf, or terrace, a kind of barren, whose swampy but austere soil bore no growth but wiry bush. The green tips of this bushy growth were a favoured “browse” of the caribou, who, though no lovers of the heights, would often wander up from their shaggy and austere plains in quest of this aromatic forage. But this lofty mountainside barren had yet another attraction for the caribou. Close at its edge, just where a granite buttress fell away steeply toward the lake, a tiny, almost imperceptible spring, stained with iron and pungent with salt, trickled out from among the roots of a dense, low thicket. Past the bare spot made by these oozings, and round behind the thicket, led a dim trail, worn by the feet of caribou, moose, bear, deer, and other stealthy wayfarers. And to this spring, when the moon of the falling leaves brought in the season of love and war, the caribou bulls were wont to come, delighting to form their wallow in the pungent, salty mud.
The bald twin peaks of Old Walquitch were ghostly white in the flood of the full moon, just risen, and swimming like a globe of witch’s fire over the far, dark, wooded horizon. But the bushy shelf and the spring by the thicket, were still in shadow. Along the trail to the spring, moving noiselessly, yet with a confident dignity, came a paler shadow, the shape of a huge, gray-white caribou bull with wide-spreading antlers.
At the edge of the spring the bull stopped and began sniffing the sharp-scented mud. Apparently he found no sign of a rival having passed that way before him, or of a cow having kept tryst there. Lifting his splendid head he stared all about him in the shadow, and up at the bare, illuminated fronts of the twin peaks.
As the light spread down the mountain to the edge of the shelf, and the moon rose into his view, he “belled” harshly several times across the dark wastes outspread below him.
Receiving no answer to his defiance, the great bull turned his attention again to the ooze around the spring. After sniffing it all over he fell to furrowing it excitedly with the two lowermost branches of his antlers,–short, broad, palmated projections thrust out low over his forehead, and called by woodsmen “the ploughs.” Every few seconds he would toss his head fiercely, like an ordinary bull, and throw the ooze over his shoulders. Then he pawed the cool, strong-smelling stuff to what he seemed to consider a fitting consistency, sniffed it over again, and raised his head to “bell” a fresh challenge across the spacious solitudes. Receiving no answer, he snorted in disgust, flung himself down on the trampled ooze, and began to wallow with a sort of slow and intense vehemence, grunting massively from time to time with volcanic emotion.
The wallow was now in the full flood of the moonlight. In that mysterious illumination the caribou, encased in shining ooze, took on the grotesque and enormous aspect of some monster of the prediluvian slimes. Suddenly his wallowing stopped, and his antlers, dripping mud, were lifted erect. For a few moments he was motionless as a rock, listening. He had caught the snapping of a twig, in the trail below the edge of the shelf. The sound was repeated; and he understood. Blowing smartly, as if to clear the mud from about his nostrils, he lurched to his feet, stalked forth from the wallow, and stood staring arrogantly along the trail by which he had come. The next moment another pair of antlers appeared; and then another bull, tall but lean, and with long, spiky, narrow horns, mounted over the edge of the shelf, and halted to eye the apparition before him.
The newcomer was of a darker hue than the lord of the wallow, and of much slimmer build,–altogether less formidable in appearance. But he looked very fit and fearless as, after a moment’s supercilious survey of his rival’s ooze-dripping form, he came mincing forward to the attack. The two, probably, had never seen each other before; but in rutting season all caribou bulls are enemies at sight.
The white bull–no longer white now, but black and silver in the moonlight–stood for some seconds quite motionless, his head low, his broad and massive antlers thrust forward, his feet planted firmly and apart. Ominous in his stillness, he waited till his light-stepping and debonair adversary was within twenty feet of him. Then, with an explosive blowing through his nostrils, he launched himself forward to the attack.
Following the customary tactics of his kind, the second bull lowered his antlers to receive the charge. But in the last fraction of a breath before the crash, he changed his mind. Leaping aside with a lightning alertness more like the action of a red buck than that of a caribou, he just evaded the shock. At the same time two of the spiky prongs of one antler ripped a long gash down his opponent’s flank.
Amazed at this departure from the usual caribou tactics, and smarting with the anguish of that punishing stroke, the white bull whirled in his tracks, and charged again, blind with fury. The slim stranger had already turned, and awaited him again, with lowered antlers in readiness, close by the edge of the wallow. This time he seemed determined to meet the shock squarely according to the rules of the game–which apparently demand that the prowess of a caribou bull shall be determined by his pushing power. But again he avoided, leaping aside as if on springs; and again his sharp prongs furrowed his enemy’s flank. With a grunt of rage the latter plunged on into the wallow, where he slipped forward upon his knees.
Had the newcomer been a little more resourceful he might now have taken his adversary at a terrible disadvantage, and won an easy victory. But he hesitated, being too much enamoured of his own method of fighting; and in the moment of hesitation opportunity passed him by. The white bull, recovering himself with suddenly awakened agility, was on his feet and on guard again in an instant.
These two disastrous experiences, however, had added wariness and wisdom to the great bull’s fighting rage. His wound, his momentary discomfiture, had opened his arrogant eyes to the fact that his antagonist was a dangerous one. He stood vigilant and considering for a few seconds, no longer with his feet planted massively for a resistless rush, but balanced, and all his forces gathered well in hand; while his elusive foe stepped lightly and tauntingly from side to side before him, threateningly.
When the white bull made up his mind to attack again, instead of charging madly to swab his foe off the earth, he moved forward at a brisk stride, ready to check himself on the instant and block the enemy’s side stroke. Within a couple of yards of his opponent he stopped short. The latter stood motionless, antlers lowered as before, apparently quite willing to lock horns. But the white bull would not be lured into a rush. Fiercely impatient he stamped the ground with a broad, clacking forehoof.
Just at this moment, as if in response to the challenge of the hoof, the stranger charged like lightning. But almost in the same motion he swerved aside, seeking again to catch his adversary on the flank. Swift and cunning as he was, however, the white bull was this time all readiness. He whirled, head down. With a sharp, dry crash the two sets of antlers came together, and locked.
That this should have happened was the irremediable mistake of the slim stranger. In that close encounter, fury against fury, force against force fairly pitted, his speed and his agility counted for nothing. For a few seconds, indeed, in sheer desperation he succeeded in withstanding his heavier and more powerful foe. With hind feet braced far back, haunches strained, flank heaving and quivering, the two held steady, staccato grunts and snorts attesting the ferocity of their efforts. Then the hind foot of the younger bull slipped a little. With a convulsive wrench he recovered his footing; and again the struggle hung at poise. But it was only for a few moments. Suddenly, as if he had felt his opportunity approach, the white bull threw all his strength into a mightier thrust. The legs of his adversary seemed to crumple up like paper beneath him.
This would have been the end of the young bull’s battlings and wooings; but as his good luck would have it, it was at the very edge of the shelf that he collapsed. Disengaging his victorious antlers, the conqueror thrust viciously and evisceratingly at the victim’s exposed flank. The latter was just struggling to rise, with precarious foothold on the loose-turfed brink of the steep. As he writhed away wildly from the goring points, the bushes and turf crumbled away, and he fell backwards, rolling and crashing till he brought up, battered but whole, in a sturdy thicket of young firs. Regaining his feet he slunk off hurriedly into the dark of the woods. And the victor, standing on the brink in the white glare of the moonlight, “belled” his triumph hoarsely across the solemn spaces of the night.