Wilderness Ways by William J Long
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William J Long >> Wilderness Ways
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Meanwhile a third frog had come _walloping_ over the lily pads from
somewhere out of sight, and grabbed the fly while the other two were
fighting about it. It was he who first showed me a curious frog trick.
When I lifted him from the water on the end of my line, he raised his
hands above his head, as if he had been a man, and grasped the line,
and tried to lift himself, hand over hand, so as to take the strain
from his mouth.--And I could never catch another frog like that.
Next morning, as I went to the early fishing, Chigwooltz, the
patient, sat by the same stone, his fore feet at the edge of the same
bronze lily leaf. At noon he was still there; in twenty-four hours at
least he had not moved a muscle.
At twilight I was following a bear along the shore. It was the
restless season, when bears are moving constantly; scarcely a twilight
passed that I did not meet one or more on their wanderings. This one
was heading for the upper end of the lake, traveling in the shallow
water near shore; and I was just behind him, stealing along in my
canoe to see what queer thing he would do. He was in no hurry, as most
other bears were, but went nosing along shore, acting much as a fat
pig would in the same place. As he approached the alder point he
stopped suddenly, and twisted his head a bit, and set his ears, as a
dog does that sees something very interesting. Then he began to steal
forward. Could it be--I shot my canoe forward--yes, it was Chigwooltz,
still sitting by the green stone, with his eye, like Bunsby's, on the
coast of Greenland. In thirty-two hours, to my knowledge, he had not
stirred.
Mooween the bear crept nearer; he was crouching now like a cat,
stealing along in the soft mud behind Chigwooltz so as to surprise
him. I saw him raise one paw slowly, cautiously, high above his head.
Down it came, _souse_! sending up a shower of mud and water. And
Chigwooltz the restful, who could sit still thirty-two hours without
getting stiff in the joints, and then dodge the sweep of Mooween's
paw, went splashing away _hippety-ippety_ over the lily pads to some
water grass, where he said _K'tung!_ and disappeared for good.
A few days later Simmo and I moved camp to a grove of birches just
above the alder point. From behind my tent an old game path led down
to the bay where the big frogs lived. There were scores of them there;
the chorus at night, with its multitude of voices running from a
whistling treble to deep, deep bass, was at times tremendous. It was
here that I had the first good opportunity of watching frogs feeding.
Chigwooltz, I found, is a perfect gourmand and a cannibal, eating,
besides his regular diet of flies and beetles and water snails, young
frogs, and crawfish, and turtles, and fish of every kind. But few have
ever seen him at his hunting, for he is active only at night or on
dark days.
I used to watch them from the shore or from my canoe at twilight. Just
outside the lily pads a shoal of minnows would be playing at the
surface, or small trout would be rising freely for the night insects.
Then, if you watched sharply, you would see gleaming points of light,
the eyes of Chigwooltz, stealing out, with barely a ripple, to the
edge of the pads. And then, when some big feeding trout drove the
minnows or small fry close in, there would be a heavy plunge from the
shadow of the pads; and you would hear Chigwooltz splashing if the
fish were a larger one than he expected.
That is why small frogs are so deadly afraid if you take them outside
the fringe of lily pads. They know that big hungry trout feed in from
the deeps, and that big frogs, savage cannibals every one, watch out
from the shadowy fringe of water plants. If you drop a little frog
there, in clear water, he will shoot in as fast as his frightened legs
will drive him, swimming first on top to avoid fish, diving deep as he
reaches the pads to avoid his hungry relatives; and so in to shallow
water and thick stems, where he can dodge about and the big frogs
cannot follow.
All sorts and conditions of frogs lived in that little bay. There was
one inquisitive fellow, who always came out of the pads and swam as
near as he could get whenever I appeared on the shore. Another would
sit in his favorite spot, under a stranded log, and let me come as
close as I would; but the moment I dangled the red ibis fly in front
of him, he would disappear like a wink, and not show himself again.
Another would follow the fly in a wild kangaroo dance over the lily
pads, going round and round the canoe as if bewitched, and would do
his best to climb in after the bit of color when I pulled it up slowly
over the bark. He afforded me so much good fun that I could not eat
him; though I always stopped to give him another dance, whenever I
went fishing for other frogs just like him. Further along shore lived
another, a perfect savage, so wild that I could never catch him, which
strangled or drowned two big frogs in a week, to my certain knowledge.
And then, one night when I was trying to find my canoe which I had
lost in the darkness, I came upon a frog migration, dozens and dozens
of them, all hopping briskly in the same direction. They had left the
stream, driven by some strange instinct, just like rats or squirrels,
and were going through the woods to the unknown destination that
beckoned them so strongly that they could not but follow.
The most curious and interesting bit of their strange life came out at
night, when they were fascinated by my light. I used sometimes to set
a candle on a piece of board for a float, and place it in the water
close to shore, where the ripples would set it dancing gently. Then I
would place a little screen of bark at the shore end of the float,
and sit down behind it in darkness.
[Illustration: Chigwooltz]
Presently two points of light would begin to shine, then to
scintillate, out among the lily pads, and Chigwooltz would come
stealing in, his eyes growing bigger and brighter with wonder. He
would place his forearms akimbo on the edge of the float, and lift
himself up a bit, like a little old man, and stare steadfastly at the
light. And there he would stay as long as I let him, just staring and
blinking.
Soon two other points of light would come stealing in from the other
side, and another frog would set his elbows on the float and stare
hard across at the first-comer. And then two more shining points, and
two more, till twelve or fifteen frogs were gathered about my beacon,
as thick as they could find elbow room on the float, all staring and
blinking like so many strange water owls come up from the bottom to
debate weighty things, with a little flickering will-o'-the-wisp
nodding grave assent in the midst of them. But never a word was
spoken; the silence was perfect.
Sometimes one, more fascinated or more curious than the others, would
climb onto the float, and put his nose solemnly into the light. Then
there would be a loud sizzle, a jump, and a splash; the candle would
go out, and the wondering circle of frogs scatter to the lily pads
again, all swimming as if in a trance, dipping their heads under water
to wash the light from their bewildered eyes.
They were quite fearless, almost senseless, at such times. I would
stretch out my hand from the shadow, pick up an unresisting frog that
threatened too soon to climb onto the float, and examine him at
leisure. But Chigwooltz is wedded to his idols; the moment I released
him he would go, fast as his legs could carry him, to put his elbows
on the float and stare at the light again.
Among the frogs, and especially among the toads, as among most wild
animals, certain individuals attach themselves strongly to man, drawn
doubtless by some unknown but no less strongly felt attraction. It was
so there in the wilderness. The first morning after our arrival at the
birch grove I was down at the shore, preparing a trout for baking in
the ashes, when Chigwooltz, of the ear drums, biggest of all the
frogs, came from among the lily pads. He had lost all fear apparently;
he swam directly up to me, touching my hands with his nose, and even
crawling out to my feet in the greatest curiosity.
After that he took up his abode near the foot of the game path. I had
only to splash the water there with my finger when he would come from
beside a green stone, or from under a log or the lily pads--for he
had a dozen hiding places--and swim up to me to be fed, or petted, or
to have his back scratched.
He ate all sorts of things, insects, bread, beef, game and fish,
either raw or cooked. I would attach a bit of meat to a string or
straw, and wiggle it before him, to make it seem alive. The moment he
saw it (he had a queer way sometimes of staring hard at a thing
without seeing it) he would crouch and creep towards it, nearer and
nearer, softly and more softly, like a cat stalking a chipmunk. Then
there would be a red flash and the meat would be gone. The red flash
was his tongue, which is attached at the outer end and folds back in
his mouth. It is, moreover, large and sticky, and he can throw it out
and back like lightning. All you see is the red flash of it, and his
game is gone.
One day, to try the effects of nicotine on a new subject, I took a bit
of Simmo's black tobacco and gave it to Chigwooltz. He ate it
thankfully, as he did everything else I gave him. In a little while he
grew uneasy, sitting up and rubbing his belly with his fore paws.
Presently he brought his stomach up into his mouth, turned it inside
out to get rid of the tobacco, washed it thoroughly in the lake,
swallowed it down again, and was ready for his bread and beef. A most
convenient arrangement that; and also a perfectly unbiased opinion on
a much debated subject.
Chigwooltz, unlike many of my pets, was not in the least dependent on
my bounty. Indeed, he was a remarkable hunter on his own account, and
what he took from me he took as hospitality, not charity. One morning
he came to me with the tail of a small trout sticking out of his
mouth. The rest of the fish was below, being digested. Another day,
towards twilight, I saw him resting on the lily pads, looking very
full, with a suspicious-looking object curling out over his under lip.
I wiggled my finger in the water, and he came from pure sociability,
for he was beyond eating any more. The suspicious-looking object
proved to be a bird's foot, and beside it was a pointed wing tip. That
was too much for my curiosity. I opened his mouth and pulled out the
bird with some difficulty, for Chigwooltz had been engaged some time
in the act of swallowing his game and had it well down. It proved to
be a full-grown male swallow, without a mark anywhere to show how he
had come by his death. Chigwooltz looked at me reproachfully, but
swallowed his game promptly the moment I had finished examining it.
There was small doubt in my mind that he had caught his bird fairly,
by a quick spring as the swallow touched the water almost at his
nose, near one of his numerous lurking places. Still it puzzled me a
good deal till one early morning, when I saw him in broad daylight do
a much more difficult thing than snapping up a swallow.
I was coming down the game path to the shore when a bird, a tree
sparrow I thought, flew to the ground just ahead of me, and hopped to
the water to drink. I watched him a moment curiously, then with
intense interest as I saw a ripple steal out of the lily pads towards
him. The ripple was Chigwooltz.
The sparrow had finished drinking and was absorbed in a morning bath.
Chigwooltz stole nearer and nearer, sinking himself till only his eyes
showed above water. The ripple that flowed away on either side was
gentle as that of a floating leaf. Then, just as the bird had sipped
and lifted its head for a last swallow, Chigwooltz hurled himself out
of water. One snap of his big mouth, and the sparrow was done for.
An hour later, when I came down to my canoe, he was sitting low on the
lily pads, winking sleepily now and then, with eight little sparrow's
toes curling over the rim of his under lip, like a hornpout's
whiskers.
VI. CLOUD WINGS THE EAGLE.
[Illustration: Old Whitehead]
"Here he is again! here's Old Whitehead, robbing the fish-hawk."
I started up from the little _commoosie_ beyond the fire, at Gillie's
excited cry, and ran to join him on the shore. A glance out over
Caribou Point to the big bay, where innumerable whitefish were
shoaling, showed me another chapter in a long but always interesting
story. Ismaquehs, the fish-hawk, had risen from the lake with a big
fish, and was doing his best to get away to his nest, where his young
ones were clamoring. Over him soared the eagle, still as fate and as
sure, now dropping to flap a wing in Ismaquehs' face, now touching him
with his great talons gently, as if to say, "Do you feel that,
Ismaquehs? If I grip once 't will be the end of you and your fish
together. And what will the little ones do then, up in the nest on
the old pine? Better drop him peacefully; you can catch
another.--_Drop him_! I say."
[Illustration: Ismaquehs]
Up to that moment the eagle had merely bothered the big hawk's flight,
with a gentle reminder now and then that he meant no harm, but wanted
the fish which he could not catch himself. Now there was a change, a
flash of the king's temper. With a roar of wings he whirled round the
hawk like a tempest, bringing up short and fierce, squarely in his
line of flight. There he poised on dark broad wings, his yellow eyes
glaring fiercely into the shrinking soul of Ismaquehs, his talons
drawn hard back for a deadly strike. And Simmo the Indian, who had run
down to join me, muttered: "Cheplahgan mad now. Ismaquehs find-um out
in a minute."
But Ismaquehs knew just when to stop. With a cry of rage he dropped,
or rather threw, his fish, hoping it would strike the water and be
lost. On the instant the eagle wheeled out of the way and bent his
head sharply. I had seen him fold wings and drop before, and had held
my breath at the speed. But dropping was of no use now, for the fish
fell faster. Instead he swooped downward, adding to the weight of his
fall the push of his strong wings, glancing down like a bolt to catch
the fish ere it struck the water, and rising again in a great
curve--up and away steadily, evenly as the king should fly, to his
own little ones far away on the mountain.
Weeks before, I had had my introduction to Old Whitehead, as Gillie
called him, on the Madawaska. We were pushing up river on our way to
the wilderness, when a great outcry and the _bang-bang_ of a gun
sounded just ahead. Dashing round a wooded bend, we came upon a man
with a smoking gun, a boy up to his middle in the river, trying to get
across, and, on the other side, a black sheep running about _baaing_
at every jump.
"He's taken the lamb; he's taken the lamb!" shouted the boy. Following
the direction of his pointing finger, I saw Old Whitehead, a splendid
bird, rising heavily above the tree-tops across the clearing. Reaching
back almost instinctively, I clutched the heavy rifle which Gillie put
into my hand and jumped out of the canoe; for with a rifle one wants
steady footing. It was a long shot, but not so very difficult; Old
Whitehead had got his bearings and was moving steadily, straight away.
A second after the report of the rifle, we saw him hitch and swerve in
the air; then two white quills came floating down, and as he turned we
saw the break in his broad white tail. And that was the mark that we
knew him by ever afterwards.
That was nearly eighty miles by canoe from where we now stood, though
scarcely ten in a straight line over the mountains; for the rivers and
lakes we were following doubled back almost to the starting point; and
the whole wild, splendid country was the eagle's hunting ground.
Wherever I went I saw him, following the rivers for stranded trout and
salmon, or floating high in air where he could overlook two or three
wilderness lakes, with as many honest fish-hawks catching their
dinners. I had promised the curator of a museum that I would get him
an eagle that summer, and so took to hunting the great bird
diligently. But hunting was of little use, except to teach me many of
his ways and habits; for he seemed to have eyes and ears all over him;
and whether I crept like a snake through the woods, or floated like a
wild duck in my canoe over the water, he always saw or heard me, and
was off before I could get within shooting distance.
Then I tried to trap him. I placed two large trout, with a steel trap
between them, in a shallow spot on the river that I could watch from
my camp on a bluff, half a mile below. Next day Gillie, who was more
eager than I, set up a shout; and running out I saw Old Whitehead
standing in the shallows and flopping about the trap. We jumped into a
canoe and pushed up river in hot haste, singing in exultation that we
had the fierce old bird at last. When we doubled the last point that
hid the shallows, there was Old Whitehead, still tugging away at a
fish, and splashing the water not thirty yards away. I shall not soon
forget his attitude and expression as we shot round the point, his
body erect and rigid, his wings half spread, his head thrust forward,
eyelids drawn straight, and a strong fierce gleam of freedom and utter
wildness in his bright eyes. So he stood, a magnificent creature, till
we were almost upon him,--when he rose quietly, taking one of the
trout. The other was already in his stomach. He was not in the trap at
all, but had walked carefully round it. The splashing was made in
tearing one fish to pieces with his claws, and freeing the other from
a stake that held it.
After that he would not go near the shallows; for a new experience had
come into his life, leaving its shadow dark behind it. He who was king
of all he surveyed from the old blasted pine on the crag's top, who
had always heretofore been the hunter, now knew what it meant to be
hunted. And the fear of it was in his eyes, I think, and softened
their fierce gleam when I looked into them again, weeks later, by his
own nest on the mountain.
Simmo entered also into our hunting, but without enthusiasm or
confidence. He had chased the same eagle before--all one summer, in
fact, when a sportsman, whom he was guiding, had offered him twenty
dollars for the royal bird's skin. But Old Whitehead still wore it
triumphantly; and Simmo prophesied for him long life and a natural
death. "No use hunt-um dat heagle," he said simply. "I try once an'
can't get near him. He see everyt'ing; and wot he don't see, he hear.
'Sides, he kin _feel_ danger. Das why he build nest way off, long
ways, O don' know where." This last with a wave of his arm to include
the universe. Cheplahgan, Old Cloud Wings, he proudly called the bird
that had defied him in a summer's hunting.
At first I had hunted him like any other savage; partly, of course, to
get his skin for the curator; partly, perhaps, to save the settler's
lambs over on the Madawaska; but chiefly just to kill him, to exult in
his death flaps, and to rid the woods of a cruel tyrant. Gradually,
however, a change came over me as I hunted; I sought him less and less
for his skin and his life, and more and more for himself, to know all
about him. I used to watch him by the hour from my camp on the big
lake, sailing quietly over Caribou Point, after he had eaten with his
little ones, and was disposed to let Ismaquehs go on with his fishing
in peace. He would set his great wings to the breeze and sit like a
kite in the wind, mounting steadily in an immense spiral, up and up,
without the shadow of effort, till the eye grew dizzy in following.
And I loved to watch him, so strong, so free, so sure of
himself--round and round, up and ever up, without hurry, without
exertion; and every turn found the heavens nearer and the earth spread
wider below. Now head and tail gleam silver white in the sunshine now
he hangs motionless, a cross of jet that a lady might wear at her
throat, against the clear, unfathomable blue of the June
heavens--there! he is lost in the blue, so high that I cannot see any
more. But even as I turn away he plunges down into vision again,
dropping with folded wings straight down like a plummet, faster and
faster, larger and larger, through a terrifying rush of air, till I
spring to my feet and catch the breath, as if I myself were falling.
And just before he dashes himself to pieces he turns in the air, head
downward, and half spreads his wings, and goes shooting, slanting down
towards the lake, then up in a great curve to the tree tops, where he
can watch better what Kakagos, the rare woods-raven, is doing, and
what game he is hunting. For that is what Cheplahgan came down in such
a hurry to find out about.
Again he would come in the early morning; sweeping up river as if he
had already been a long day's journey, with the air of far-away and
far-to-go in his onward rush. And if I were at the trout pools, and
very still, I would hear the strong silken rustle of his wings as he
passed. At midday I would see him poised over the highest mountain-top
northward, at an enormous altitude, where the imagination itself could
not follow the splendid sweep of his vision; and at evening he would
cross the lake, moving westward into the sunset on tireless
pinions--always strong, noble, magnificent in his power and
loneliness, a perfect emblem of the great lonely magnificent
wilderness.
One day as I watched him, it swept over me suddenly that forest and
river would be incomplete without him. The thought of this came back
to me, and spared him to the wilderness, on the last occasion when I
went hunting for his life.
That was just after we reached the big lake, where I saw him robbing
the fish-hawk. After much searching and watching I found a great log
by the outlet where Old Whitehead often perched. There was a big eddy
hard by, on the edge of a shallow, and he used to sit on the log,
waiting for fish to come out where he could wade in and get them.
There was a sickness among the suckers that year (it comes regularly
every few years, as among rabbits), and they would come struggling out
of the deep water to rest on the sand, only to be caught by the minks
and fish-hawks and bears and Old Whitehead, all of whom were waiting
and hungry for fish.
For several days I put a big bait of trout and whitefish on the edge
of the shallows. The first two baits were put out late in the
afternoon, and a bear got them both the next night. Then I put them
out in the early morning, and before noon Cheplahgan had found them.
He came straight as a string from his watch place over the mountain,
miles away, causing me to wonder greatly what strange sixth sense
guided him; for sight and smell seemed equally out of the question.
The next day he came again. Then I placed the best bait of all in the
shallows, and hid in the dense underbrush near, with my gun.
He came at last, after hours of waiting, dropping from above the
tree-tops with a heavy rustling of pinions. And as he touched the old
log, and spread his broad white tail, I saw and was proud of the gap
which my bullet had made weeks before. He stood there a moment erect
and splendid, head, neck, and tail a shining white; even the dark
brown feathers of his body glinted in the bright sunshine. And he
turned his head slowly from side to side, his keen eyes flashing, as
if he would say, "Behold, a king!" to Chigwooltz the frog, and
Tookhees the wood mouse, and to any other chance wild creature that
might watch him from the underbrush at his unkingly act of feeding on
dead fish. Then he hopped down--rather awkwardly, it must be
confessed; for he is a creature of the upper deeps, who cannot bear to
touch the earth--seized a fish, which he tore to pieces with his claws
and ate greedily. Twice I tried to shoot him; but the thought of the
wilderness without him was upon me, and held me back. Then, too, it
seemed so mean to pot him from ambush when he had come down to earth,
where he was at a disadvantage; and when he clutched some of the
larger fish in his talons, and rose swiftly and bore away westward,
all desire to kill him was gone. There were little Cloud Wings, it
seemed, which I must also find and watch. After that I hunted him more
diligently than before, but without my gun. And a curious desire,
which I could not account for, took possession of me: to touch this
untamed, untouched creature of the clouds and mountains.
Next day I did it. There were thick bushes growing along one end of
the old log on which the eagle rested. Into these I cut a tunnel with
my hunting-knife, arranging the tops in such a way as to screen me
more effectively. Then I put out my bait, a good two hours before the
time of Old Whitehead's earliest appearance, and crawled into my den
to wait.
I had barely settled comfortably into my place, wondering how long
human patience could endure the sting of insects and the hot close air
without moving or stirring a leaf, when the heavy silken rustle
sounded close at hand, and I heard the grip of his talons on the log.
There he stood, at arm's length, turning his head uneasily, the light
glinting on his white crest, the fierce, untamed flash in his bright
eye. Never before had he seemed so big, so strong, so splendid; my
heart jumped at the thought of him as our national emblem. I am glad
still to have seen that emblem once, and felt the thrill of it.
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