CHAPTER XIV.
THE RED SCOURGE OF THE FOREST
When the drought had grown almost unbearable, and man and beast, herb and tree, all seemed to hold up hands of appeal together to the brazen sky, crying out, “How long? How long?” there came at last a faint, acrid pungency on the air which made the dry woods shudder with fear. Close on the heels of this fierce, menacing smell came a veil of thinnest vapour, lilac-toned, delicate, magical, and indescribably sinister. Sky and trees, hills and fields, they took on a new beauty under this light, transfiguring touch. But the touch was one that made all the forest folk, and the settlement folk as well, scan the horizon anxiously and calculate the direction of the wind.
Miles away, far down the wooded ridges and beyond the farthest of the little lakes to southward, some irresponsible and misbegotten idiot had gone away and left his camp-fire burning. Eating its way furtively through the punk-dry turf, and moss, and dead-leaf débris, the fire had spread undiscovered over an area of considerable width, and had at last begun to lay hold upon the trees. On an almost imperceptible wind, one morning, the threatening pungency stole up over the settlement and the ridge. Later in the day the thinnest of the smoke-veil arrived. And that night, had any one been on watch on the top of the ridge, where Red Fox had had his lookout two months earlier, he might have discerned a thread of red light, cut here and there with slender, sharp tongues of flame, along a section of the southward sky. Only the eagles, however, saw this beautiful, ominous sight. In the last of the twilight they rose and led off their two nestlings – now clothed with loose black feathers, and looking nearly as large as their parents – to the top of a naked cliff far up the flank of old Ringwaak. Here they all four huddled together on a safe ledge, and watched the disastrous red light with fascinated eyes.
Red Fox, meanwhile, was in his lair, too troubled and apprehensive to go hunting. He had had no experience of that scourge of the drought-stricken woods, the forest fire. His instinct gave him no sufficient information on the subject, at least at this early stage of the emergency. And for once his keen sagacity found itself at fault. He could do nothing but wait.
As the night deepened a wind arose, and the red line across the southern horizon became a fierce glow that mounted into the sky, with leaping spires of flame along its lower edge. The wind quickly grew into a gale, driving the smoke and flame before it. Soon a doe and two fawns, their eyes wide with terror, went bounding past Red Fox. Still he made no stir, for he wanted to know more about the peril that threatened him before he decided which way to flee to escape it. As he pondered, – no longer resting under his bush, but standing erect behind his den mouth, his mate and the youngsters crouching near and trembling, – a clumsy porcupine rattled past, at a pace of which Red Fox would never have believed a porcupine capable. Then a weasel, – and four or five rabbits immediately at its heels, all unmindful of its insatiable ferocity. By this time the roar and savage crackle of the flames came clearly down the wind, with puffs of choking smoke. It was plainly time to do something. Red Fox decided that it was hopeless to flee straight ahead of the flames, which would be sure to outrace and outwind his family in a short time. He thought it best to run at a slant across the path of the conflagration, and so, if possible, get beyond the skirts of it. He thought of the open fields adjoining the settlement, and made up his mind that there lay the best chance of safety. With a sharp signal to his mate, he started on a long diagonal across the meadow, over the brook, and down the hill, the whole family keeping close behind him. No sooner had they crossed it than the meadow was suddenly alive with fleeing shapes, – deer, and a bear, woodchucks, squirrels, and rabbits, two wildcats, and mice, weasels, and porcupines. There were no muskrats or mink, because these latter were keeping close to the watercourses, however shrunken, and putting their trust in these for final escape.
As Red Fox ran on his cunning cross line, he suddenly saw the red tongues licking through the trees ahead of him, while blazing brands and huge sparks began to drop about him. The air was full of appalling sights and sounds. Seeing that the fire had cut him off, he turned and ran on another diagonal, hoping to escape over the ridge. For a little while he sped thus, cutting across the stream of wild-eyed fugitives; but presently found that in this direction also the flames had headed him. Checked straight behind his den by a long stretch of hardwood growth, the flames had gone far ahead on either flank, tearing through the dry balsamy fir and spruce groves. Not understanding the properties of that appalling element, fire, nor guessing that it preferred some kinds of woods to others, Red Fox had been misled in his calculations. There was nothing now for him to do but join the ordinary, panic-stricken throng of fugitives, and flee straight ahead.
In this frightful and uncomprehended situation, however, Red Fox kept his wits about him. He remembered that about a mile ahead, a little lower down, there was a swamp on a kind of hillside plateau, and a fair-sized beaver pond at the farther end of it. Swerving somewhat to the left, he led the way toward this possible refuge, at the utmost speed of which his family were capable. This speed, of course, was regulated by the pace of the weakest members; and for the big, headstrong whelp, whom his father had had to save from the old raccoon and from the mad muskrat, it was by no means fast enough. Terrified, but at the same time independent and self-confident, he darted ahead, neck and neck with a bunch of rabbits and a weasel, none of whom appeared to have the slightest objection to his company. To his mother’s urgent calls he paid no heed whatever, and in a moment he had vanished. Whether his strength and blind luck pulled him through, or whether he perished miserably, overtaken by the flames, Red Fox never knew.
Keeping very close together, the diminished family sped on, bellies to earth, through the strange, hushed rustle of the silently fleeing wild creatures. Behind them the crackling roar of the fire deepened rapidly, while the dreadful glow of the sky seemed to lean forward as if to topple upon them. From time to time the smoke volleyed thicker about them, as if to strangle and engulf them. Over their heads flew hundreds of panic-blinded birds, – grouse, and woodpeckers, and the smaller sparrow and warbler tribes. But the wiser crows, with the hawks and owls, knew enough to fly high into the air beyond the clutch of the flames.
Comparing the speed of his own flight with that of the flames behind him, Red Fox felt that he would make the beaver pond in time, though with nothing to spare. His compact little party was now joined by two raccoons, whose pace seemed to just equal that of the young foxes. For some reason they seemed to recognize a confident leadership in Red Fox, and felt safer in following him than in trusting to their own resources. Yet, unlike most of the fugitives, they appeared to be in no sense panic-stricken. Their big, keen, restless eyes took note of everything, and wore a look of brave self-possession. They were not going to lose in this race of life and death through any failure of theirs to grasp opportunity. Had Red Fox lost his head and done anything to discredit his leadership, they would have promptly parted company with him.
The swift procession of fear surrounding Red Fox and his family was continually changing, though always the same in its headlong, bewildering confusion. Some of the creatures, as the deer and the rabbits, were swifter than the fox family, and soon left them behind. Once, indeed, a wildly bounding doe, belated somehow, going through the thickets with great leaps of thirty feet from hoof-mark to hoof-mark, brought her sharp hooves down within a hair’s breadth of Red Fox’s nose, so that he felt himself lucky to have escaped with a whole hide. Others of the animals, on the other hand, were slower than the fox family, and were soon outstripped, to fall back into the galloping vortex whose heat was already searching hungrily under the thickets far ahead. The porcupines, for instance, and the woodchucks, and the skunks, – hopeless but self-possessed in the face of fate, – could not long keep up the terrible pace, and soon went under. All this tragedy, however, was no concern of Red Fox, who troubled himself not a jot about any one’s business but that of his own family, where his interest, in such a moment as this, began and ended.
Suddenly, to his intense astonishment, he ran plump into a big black bear, who stood motionless in a hollow under a thick-leaved beech-tree. Red Fox could not understand why she was not fleeing like the rest of the world. But, as he swerved aside, he saw behind her, stretched out in utter exhaustion, her two cubs. Then he understood. She had evidently brought her cubs a long way, the little animals running till they could not stumble forward one step more; and now, having exhausted every effort to arouse them and urge them farther, she was awaiting her doom quietly, holding her great black body to shield them as long as possible from the onrush of the flame. The fugitives streamed past her on either side, but she saw none of them, as her eyes, strained with despair, wandered back and forth between the roaring blaze and the prostrate bodies of her cubs.
Red Fox noted with anxiety that his own youngsters were beginning to slacken speed and stumble as they ran, requiring all their watchful mother’s efforts to keep them spurred on. But a moment later he caught a red gleam reflected from water just ahead. He smelled the water, too; and the wearying puppies, as they smelled it, were encouraged to a fresh burst of speed. A few seconds more and they were up to their necks in the saving coolness, the two raccoons close beside them, and every kind of forest dweller panting and splashing around them.
Much as they hated the water, the fox family could swim in such an emergency as this; and Red Fox led the way out to the biggest beaver-house, which stood, a ragged dome of sticks and mud, near the centre of the pond. There was trampling and splashing and swimming everywhere, most of the larger animals, the bears and deer, gathering at the farther side of the pond. On several overhanging limbs crouched wildcats and a couple of lynxes, afraid to take to the water, which they abhorred. Amid all the confusion and terrifying sounds, the beavers, usually the shyest of wild creatures, were working imperturbably, paying no heed whatever to the motley throngs scurrying around them. They knew that the long drought had baked the roofs of their houses to a tinder, and now, in a desperate but well-ordered haste, they were covering them with wet mud from the bottom of the pond. They, at least, were going to be safe.
By this time the heat was extreme, and the crackling roar of the flames was almost upon them. Red Fox led his family around to the farther side of the big beaver-house, but himself kept watch where he could see everything. The smoke was now volleying down upon the surface of the pond in great bursts, the water was smitten here and there with red brands that hissed as they fell, and the tongues of flame that ran up the tall trunks of pine and fir seemed to leap bodily into the air in order to set fire to the trees ahead of them. The whole southeastern sky was now like a wall of molten and blazing copper, stretching to the zenith and about to topple down upon the world. Against it, a last despairing barrier already beginning to crumble, stood black and defiant the water-side fringe of trees.
At last the too frail barrier went down, and the roaring storm of fire broke full upon the pond. In their pain and panic, many of the creatures trampled one another under water. Others, afraid of drowning, were slain by the implacable heat. The fox family, however, well away from the densest and maddest of the crowd, sank their bodies quite under water, just lifting their noses every other second to breathe. Red Fox himself, resolutely curious no matter what the emergency, kept his head above water as long as possible and dipped it under as briefly as possible, enduring the heat till his eyes felt scorched and his nostrils almost blistered, in order that he might be aware of all that happened. He saw one great lynx, his fur so singed that he looked hardly half his usual size, spring far out into the water with a screech, and never rise again. He saw the other great cats swimming frantically, and clambering out of the unaccustomed element upon the backs of deer and bears, who paid no attention to their strangely unhostile burdens. One huge wildcat, badly scorched, succeeded in reaching the top of a beaver-house, where he crouched snarling and spitting at the flames, while squirrels and chipmunks crowded about him unheeded. Drenched from his plunge, his thick, wet fur seemed to withstand the heat for a time. Then his wits came to his help, and he slunk down into the water again, his eyes staring wide with the very madness of terror.
In a minute or two the flames had raced around both sides of the pond and met again, enclosing the water with a spouting and roaring wall of fire. The rabble of beasts gathered at the farther side now surged frantically back toward the centre of the pond; and Red Fox anxiously made ready to lead his family away from the path of the bedlam mob. But the unhappy creatures, too crushed together to swim, merely trod one another down, and most of them were drowned long before they reached the centre. The bigger and stronger ones, of course, survived the struggle, but of these many presently went down, burned inwardly by the flames they had inhaled; and the assault which Red Fox had dreaded was utterly broken. Only a few stragglers reached the beaver-houses in the centre, where the wet mud was sending up clouds of steam.
The pond was no longer crowded, but looked almost deserted in the furious crimson glow, for all the survivors were either swimming about the centre, diving every other moment to keep their heads from scorching, or else crouched like Red Fox beneath the sheltering element. Only the wise beavers were perfectly content within their water-houses, and the muskrats in their deep holes, and the mink lurking under the swampy overhanging banks.
In a few minutes more the heat palpably diminished, as the underbrush, branches, and smaller trees along the windward shore of the pond burned themselves out in the fierce wind, leaving only the taller trunks to flare and flicker like half-spent torches. The heat from the roaring underbrush of the leeward side, of course, was partly carried away by the wind. Little by little the centre of the conflagration shifted ahead, and the leaping spires of flame moved forward, leaving behind them thick smoke, and red glowing spikes and pillars of hot coal to illuminate the dark. The remnants of the bushes along the shore still snapped with vivid and spiteful sparks, and the thick moss and leaf-mould that matted the forest floor smouldered like glowing peat. As the heat still further moderated many of the animals still left alive tried to go ashore, but only succeeded in burning their feet. Red Fox, too sagacious for such a vain attempt, led his family out upon the top of the beaver-house, and waited philosophically for the awful night to wear away. At last, after hours that seemed like months, the savage glow in the northwestern sky began to pale in the approach of dawn, and pure streamers of saffron and tender pink stole out across the dreadful desolation. By noon, though the fire still ate its way in the moss, and the smarting smoke still rose thickly on every side, and here and there the blackened rampikes still flickered fitfully, the ruined woods were cool enough for Red Fox to lead his family through them by picking his way very carefully. Working over toward his right, he came at last, footsore and singed and choked with thirst, to the first of the lower pastures, which had proved too wide for the flames to cross. On the other side of the pasture were woods, still green, shadowy, unscarred. In a sort of ecstasy the foxes sped across the hillocky pasture and plunged into blessed cool.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WORRYING OF RED BUCK
On the heels of the fire came long, drenching rains, which quenched the smouldering moss and stumps, filled the brooks and ponds, and brought back hope and the joy of life to the Ringwaak country. But there remained a cruel black scar across the landscape, along the upper slopes of the ridge, stretching from the region of the lower lakes all the way over into the wild Ottanoonsis Valley. It was a scar which succeeding springs would soften with the balm of bush and weed and leafage, though two generations would hardly avail to efface it. To Red Fox it was a hateful thing because it represented a vast and rich hunting range spoiled. The little meadow, however, had suffered no irreparable damage, because, there being no growth of bushes upon it to feed the fire, the roots of the grass had not been burned out of the soil. Immediately after the rains a fresh young herbage sprang up all over it, from the brook’s edge back to the woods, and it lay like a jewel in its brilliancy, the one spot of green young life in the blackened expanses of ruin. Red Fox and his family went back to the den above the meadow, and found it, of course, none the worse. In fact, the desolation surrounding it made it all the more secure from intrusion or discovery. In the course of the next few weeks the young ones, now as large as their mother, and with much of their father’s independence of spirit, scattered off to shift for themselves; and Red Fox dropped back with a sense of relief into the pleasant routine of his life before their coming. He visited the farms in the settlement more frequently now than of old, because he knew that the half-breed hound had lost all interest in hunting since the death of his comrade, the black and white mongrel. He kept, of course, a wary lookout to avoid stumbling across Jabe Smith; but with the rest of the settlement and their possessions he did not hesitate to take liberties. Once, indeed, the half-breed hound picked up his hot trail and followed him with some of the old eagerness; but when, tiring of the game, Red Fox turned with bared teeth and stood at bay, the dog remembered urgent business back at the farm, and hurried off to see to it.
For a season now the big fox’s daily life, though to himself filled with inexhaustible interest, was not adventurous. His mastery, where mastery was possible, was so assured and recognized, and his few enemies were so well comprehended, that ordinary caution held him secure. He needed, to be sure, at this stage in his career, all the sagacity with which nature and his excellent ancestors had so liberally endowed him; for his unfailing triumphs over circumstances had given him that self-confident pride which so often proves a snare to its possessor.
Along in the last week of September, one evening about sunset, Red Fox was enjoying a good stretch after a nap beneath his juniper-bush, when he saw a tall, high-antlered red buck standing about ten feet away and eying him with a kind of hostile curiosity. It was rutting season, when, as Red Fox knew, the bucks were always looking for trouble. But he also knew that the handsome, arrogant-looking beast could have no possible excuse for a quarrel with him. He finished his stretching unconcernedly, therefore, then sat up on his haunches and stared, good-naturedly enough, at the visitor. What was his surprise, then, when the latter, apparently enraged because the small red animal by the juniper-bush did not seem afraid, suddenly bounded at him with a beautiful, graceful ferocity, and struck at him with his keen fore hooves.
Had one of the big black stumps on the hillside pounced upon him, Red Fox could not have been more astonished. His astonishment, however, did not make him lose his wits. He was out of the way like a flash before that murderous hoof descended. But the angry buck followed him up, bounding like a great ball, and striking again and again at the small, brush-tailed creature who so easily eluded him. With each failure he grew more and more irate; but at last, half-winded with the violence of his efforts, he stopped, his great red sides panting. For half a minute he stared at Red Fox irresolutely; while Red Fox sat up on his haunches ten yards off and stared back with an unruffled, indifferent air. Then, apparently concluding that he had made a mistake, the hot-headed animal wheeled daintily and moved off across the meadow.
But he was not to get away so easily. Red Fox’s blood was up. The attack had been unprovoked, and altogether senseless. Between the foxes and the deer there had always been a kind of informal peace, their interests in no way conflicting. Red Fox was minded to make the haughty animal suffer for his rashness. Departing from the custom of his kind, he now slipped forward swiftly, – as a dog might, or a solitary wolf in dealing with a moose, – and nipped the buck smartly on the hind leg.
Deeply insulted, the buck wheeled about and struck at his presumptuous assailant. But Red Fox was already beyond his reach. After a couple of futile rushes he gave up the effort and again moved away grandly about his business, with an air that seemed to say that foxes, if there were such things, were quite beneath his notice. No sooner had he fairly turned, however, than he felt again Red Fox’s long, avenging teeth in his hind leg.
With a little worry mingled in his rage, the buck turned once more. But this time he made but one effort to catch his nimble assailant. Then he stood and eyed Red Fox, shaking his proud antlers and stamping with his fine-edged fore hooves. Thereupon Red Fox ran around him half a dozen times, this way and that in dazzlingly swift circles, which kept the tall animal wheeling nervously in the effort to face him. At last he darted in so cleverly that he got another nip at the buck’s hind leg; and the buck, now quite demoralized, made a wild leap into the air, and started away in great leaps, across the meadow, over the brook, and through the burnt woods beyond.
This was a victory to swell even Red Fox’s heart with pride, – and his mate had been watching it all from the door of her den. The natural and fox-like thing for the victor to have done, now, was to be content with such a triumph. But Red Fox wanted to inflict punishment. Moreover, he had learned a great deal from the persistent trailing of the dogs in the days when the hound and the mongrel had persecuted him. Like a hunting dog, therefore, he set out in pursuit of the fleeing buck, following him by sight through the naked ruins of the woods.
In a very few minutes the buck, somewhat short-winded from his earlier efforts, paused and looked back. In a moment he caught sight of the low, red figure, belly to earth and stretched straight out, coming up upon him swiftly through the blackened stumps. In a panic he ran on again till the pursuer was out of sight. Then again he stopped to take breath, running back a little way, after the custom of his kind, and lying down with his face toward the danger. But he had no more than settled himself, his flanks heaving and his fine nostrils wide, when again the red pursuer came in sight, following implacably. With heart almost bursting, the harassed buck sprang to his feet, and resumed his flight through the trunks and rampikes.
After this had been repeated two or three times, at ever shortening intervals as the fugitive’s distress increased, the chase led out of the burnt woods and into the unscarred forest. Here, owing to Red Fox’s comparatively indifferent powers of trailing, the buck would have had a great advantage had he been fresh. But instead of that he was now on the verge of utter collapse. Once fairly inside the leafy coverts, he stopped, unable to run a step farther. His legs were trembling so that they could hardly support him, but he turned and stood at bay, ready to make a last fight against the mysterious enemy whom he had so rashly challenged.
A moment more and Red Fox came up. The buck struck at him frantically, but he kept out of reach, circling, and considering the situation. Then he sat up, about twenty feet away, and coolly eyed the unhappy buck. He noted the starting eyes, the flaring nostrils, the labouring flanks, the quivering knees. The victory was certainly complete, the vengeance surely effective. He did not see exactly what else to do. Though beaten, the big beast was not killed; and Red Fox had no desire to hazard a final mix-up with those desperate hooves. In this novel chase there had been no thought of hunting, but only of wiping out an affront. At last, though with a certain hesitation of manner, Red Fox got up, licked his lips, took a last triumphant look at his discomfited enemy, and trotted away through the underbrush to hunt for a mouse or a rabbit. The buck stared after him for a half a minute, then lay down in his tracks to recover.