The little grouse thus learned that a dog is not a fox, and must be
differently played; and an old lesson was yet more deeply
graven--'Obedience is long life.'

The rest of September was passed in keeping quietly out of the way of
gunners as well as some old enemies. They still roosted on the long,
thin branches of the hardwood trees among the thickest leaves, which
protected them from foes in the air; the height saved them from foes on
the ground, and left them nothing to fear but coons, whose slow, heavy
tread on the limber boughs never failed to give them timely warning. But
the leaves were falling now--every month its foes and its food. This was
nut time, and it was owl time, too. Barred owls coming down from the
north doubled or trebled the owl population. The nights were getting
frosty and the coons less dangerous, so the mother changed the place of
roosting to the thickest foliage of a hemlock-tree.

Only one of the brood disregarded the warning _'Kreet, kreet_.' He stuck
to his swinging elm-bough, now nearly naked, and a great yellow-eyed owl
bore him off before morning.

Mother and three young ones now were left, but they were as big as she
was; indeed one, the eldest, he of the chip, was bigger. Their ruffs had
begun to show. Just the tips, to tell what they would be like when
grown, and not a little proud they were of them.

The ruff is to the partridge what the train is to the peacock--his chief
beauty and his pride. A hen's ruff is black with a slight green gloss. A
cock's is much larger and blacker and is glossed with more vivid
bottle-green. Once in a while a partridge is born of unusual size and
vigor, whose ruff is not only larger, but by a peculiar kind of
intensification is of a deep coppery red, iridescent with violet, green,
and gold. Such a bird is sure to be a wonder to all who know him, and
the little one who had squatted on the chip, and had always done what he
was told, developed before the Acorn Moon had changed, into all the
glory of a gold and copper ruff-for this was Redruff, the famous
partridge of the Don Valley.




IV


One day late in the Acorn Moon, that is, about mid-October, as the
grouse family were basking with full crops near a great pine log on the
sunlit edge of the beaver-meadow, they heard the far-away bang of a gun,
and Redruff, acting on some impulse from within, leaped on the log,
strutted up and down a couple of times, then, yielding to the elation of
the bright, clear, bracing air, he whirred his wings in loud defiance.
Then, giving fuller vent to this expression of vigor, just as a colt
frisks to show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until,
unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery
of his new power, thumped the air again and again till he filled the
near woods with the loud tattoo of the fully grown cock-partridge. His
brother and sister heard and looked on with admiration and surprise; so
did his mother, but from that time she began to be a little afraid of
him.

In early November comes the moon of a weird foe. By a strange law of
nature, not wholly without parallel among mankind, all partridges go
crazy in the November moon of their first year. They become possessed of
a mad hankering to get away somewhere, it does not matter much where.
And the wisest of them do all sorts of foolish things at this period.
They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the country by night, and are
cut in two by wires, or dash into lighthouses, or locomotive headlights.
Daylight finds them in all sorts of absurd places, in buildings, in open
marshes, perched on telephone wires in a great city, or even on board of
coasting vessels. The craze seems to be a relic of a bygone habit of
migration, and it has at least one good effect, it breaks up the
families and prevents the constant intermarrying, which would surely be
fatal to their race. It always takes the young badly their first year,
and they may have it again the second fall, for it is very catching; but
in the third season it is practically unknown.

Redruff's mother knew it was coming as soon as she saw the frost grapes
blackening, and the maples shedding their crimson and gold. There was
nothing to do but care for their health and keep them in the quietest
part of the woods.

The first sign of it came when a flock of wild geese went _honking_
southward overhead. The young ones had never before seen such
long-necked hawks, and were afraid of them. But seeing that their mother
had no fear, they took courage, and watched them with intense interest.
Was it the wild, clanging cry that moved them, or was it solely the
inner prompting then come to the surface? A strange longing to follow
took possession of each of the young ones. They watched those arrowy
trumpeters fading away to the south, and sought out higher perches to
watch them farther yet, and from that time things were no more the same.
The November moon was waxing, and when it was full, the November madness
came.

The least vigorous of the flock were most affected. The little family
was scattered. Redruff himself flew on several long erratic night
journeys. The impulse took him southward, out there lay the boundless
stretch of Lake Ontario, so he turned again, and the waning of the Mad
Moon found him once more in the Mud Creek Glen, but absolutely alone.




V


Food grew scarce as winter wore on. Redruff clung to the old ravine and
the piney sides of Taylor's Hill, but every month brought its food and
its foes. The Mad Moon brought madness, solitude, and grapes; the Snow
Moon came with rosehips; and the Stormy Moon brought browse of birch and
silver storms that sheathed the woods in ice, and made it hard to keep
one's perch while pulling off the frozen buds. Redruff's beak grew
terribly worn with the work, so that even when closed there was still an
opening through behind the hook. But nature had prepared him for the
slippery footing; his toes, so slim and trim in September, had sprouted
rows of sharp, horny points, and these grew with the growing cold, till
the first snow had found him fully equipped with snowshoes and
ice-creepers. The cold weather had driven away most of the hawks and
owls, and made it impossible for his four-footed enemies to approach
unseen, so that things were nearly balanced.

His flight in search of food had daily led him farther on, till he had
discovered and explored the Rosedale Creek, with its banks of
silver-birch, and Castle Frank, with its grapes and rowan berries, as
well as Chester woods, where amelanchier and Virginia-creeper swung
their fruit-bunches, and checkerberries glowed beneath the snow.

He soon found out that for some strange reason men with guns did not go
within the high fence of Castle-Frank. So among these scenes he lived
his life, learning new places, new foods, and grew wiser and more
beautiful every day.

He was quite alone so far as kindred were concerned, but that scarcely
seemed a hardship. Wherever he went he could see the jolly chickadees
scrambling merrily about, and he remembered the time when they had
seemed such big, important creatures. They were the most absurdly
cheerful things in the woods. Before the autumn was fairly over they had
begun to sing their famous refrain, '_Spring Soon_,' and kept it up with
good heart more or less all through the winter's direst storms, till at
length the waning of the Hungry Moon, our February, seemed really to
lend some point to the ditty, and they redoubled their optimistic
announcement to the world in an 'I-told-you-so' mood. Soon good support
was found, for the sun gained strength and melted the snow from the
southern slope of Castle Frank Hill, and exposed great banks of fragrant
wintergreen, whose berries were a bounteous feast for Redruff, and,
ending the hard work of pulling frozen browse, gave his bill the needed
chance to grow into its proper shape again. Very soon the first bluebird
came flying over and warbled as he flew '_The spring is coming_.' The
sun kept gaining, and early one day in the dark of the Wakening Moon of
March there was a loud '_Caw, caw_,' and old Silverspot, the king-crow,
came swinging along from the south at the head of his troops and
officially announced

     'THE SPRING HAS COME.'

All nature seemed to respond to this, the opening of the birds' New
Year, and yet it was something within that chiefly seemed to move them.
The chickadees went simply wild; they sang their '_Spring now, spring
now now--Spring now now_,' so persistently that one wondered how they
found time to get a living.

And Redruff felt it thrill him through and through. He sprang with
joyous vigor on a stump and sent rolling down the little valley, again
and again, a thundering '_Thump, thump, thump, thunderrrrrrrrr_,' that
wakened dull echoes as it rolled, and voiced his gladness in the coming
of the spring.

Away down the valley was Cuddy's shanty. He heard the drum-call on the
still morning air and 'reckoned there was a cock patridge to git,' and
came sneaking up the ravine with his gun. But Redruff skimmed away in
silence, nor rested till once more in Mud Creek Glen. And there he
mounted the very log where first he had drummed and rolled his loud
tattoo again and again, till a small boy who had taken a short cut to
the mill through the woods, ran home, badly scared, to tell his mother
he was sure the Indians were on the war-path, for he heard their
war-drums beating in the glen.

Why does a happy boy holla? Why does a lonesome youth sigh? They don't
know any more than Redruff knew why every day now he mounted some dead
log and thumped and thundered to the woods; then strutted and admired
his gorgeous blazing ruffs as they flashed their jewels in the sunlight,
and then thundered out again. Whence now came the strange wish for
someone else to admire the plumes? And why had such a notion never come
till the Pussywillow Moon?

     _'Thump, thump, thunder-r-r.r-r-r-rrrr'_
     _'Thump, thump, thunder-r-r-r-r-r-rrrr'_

he rumbled again and again.

Day after day he sought the favorite log, and a new beauty, a rose-red
comb, grew out above each clear, keen eye, and the clumsy snow-*shoes
were wholly shed from his feet. His ruff grew finer, his eye brighter,
and his whole appearance splendid to behold, as he strutted and flashed
in the sun. But-oh! he was _so lonesome now_.

Yet what could he do but blindly vent his hankering in this daily
drum-parade, till on a day early in loveliest May, when the trilliums
had fringed his log with silver stars, and he had drummed and longed,
then drummed again, his keen ear caught a sound, a gentle footfall in
the brush. He turned to a statue and watched; he knew he had been
watched. Could it be possible? Yes! there it was--a form--another--a shy
little lady grouse, now bashfully seeking to hide. In a moment he was by
her side. His whole nature swamped by a new feeling--burnt up with
thirst--a cooling spring in sight. And how he spread and flashed his
proud array! How came he to know that that would please? He puffed his
plumes and contrived to stand just right to catch the sun, and strutted
and uttered a low, soft chuckle that must have been just as good as the
'sweet nothings' of another race, for clearly now her heart was won.
Won, really, days ago, if only he had known. For full three days she had
come at the loud tattoo and coyly admired him from afar, and felt a
little piqued that he had not yet found her out, so close at hand. So it
was not quite all mischance, perhaps, that that little stamp had caught
his ear. But now she meekly bowed her head with sweet, submissive
grace--the desert passed, the parch-burnt wanderer found the spring at
last.

       *       *       *       *       *

Oh, those were bright, glad days in the lovely glen of the unlovely
name. The sun was never so bright, and the piney air was balmier sweet
than dreams. And that great noble bird came daily on his log, sometimes
with her and sometimes quite alone, and drummed for very joy of being
alive. But why sometimes alone? Why not forever with his Brownie bride?
Why should she stay to feast and play with him for hours, then take some
stealthy chance to slip away and see him no more for hours or till next
day, when his martial music from the log announced him restless for her
quick return? There was a woodland mystery here he could not clear. Why
should her stay with him grow daily less till it was down to minutes,
and one day at last she never came at all. Nor the next, nor the next,
and Redruff, wild, careered on lightning wing and drummed on the old
log, then away up-stream on another log, and skimmed the hill to another
ravine to drum and drum. But on the fourth day, when he came and loudly
called her, as of old, at their earliest tryst, he heard a sound in the
bushes, as at first, and there was his missing Brownie bride with ten
little peeping partridges following after.

Redruff skimmed to her side, terribly frightening the bright-eyed
downlings, and was just a little dashed to find the brood with claims
far stronger than his own. But he soon accepted the change, and
thenceforth joined himself to the brood, caring for them as his father
never had for him.




VI


Good fathers are rare in the grouse world. The mother-grouse builds her
nest and hatches out her young without help. She even hides the place of
the nest from the father and meets him only at the drum-log and the
feeding-ground, or perhaps the dusting-place, which is the club-house of
the grouse kind.

When Brownie's little ones came out they had filled her every thought,
even to the forgetting of their splendid father. But on the third day,
when they were strong enough, she had taken them with her at the
father's call.

Some fathers take no interest in their little ones, but Redruff joined
at once to help Brownie in the task of rearing the brood. They had
learned to eat and drink just as their father had learned long ago, and
could toddle along, with their mother leading the way, while the father
ranged near by or followed far behind.

The very next day, as they went from the hill-side down toward the creek
in a somewhat drawn-out string, like beads with a big one at each end, a
red squirrel, peeping around a pine-trunk, watched the processing of
downlings with the Runtie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards
behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the eye of the
squirrel, whose strange, perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused
at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the
hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him
until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat;
his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and
what a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck the squirrel
square on the end of the nose, his weakest spot, and sent him reeling;
he staggered and wriggled into a brush-pile, where he had expected to
carry the little grouse, and there lay gasping with red drops trickling
down his wicked snout. The partridges left him lying there, and what
became of him they never knew, but he troubled them no more.

The family went on toward the water, but a cow had left deep tracks in
the sandy loam, and into one of these fell one of the chicks and peeped
in dire distress when he found he could not get out.

This was a fix. Neither old one seemed to know what to do, but as they
trampled vainly round the edge, the sandy bank caved in, and, running
down, formed a long slope, up which the young one ran and rejoined his
brothers under the broad veranda of their mother's tail.

Brownie was a bright little mother, of small stature, but keen of wit
and sense, and was, night and day, alert to care for her darling chicks.
How proudly she stepped and clucked through the arching woods with her
dainty brood behind her; how she strained her little brown tail almost
to a half-circle to give them a broader shade, and never flinched at
sight of any foe, but held ready to fight or fly, whichever seemed the
best for her little ones.

[Illustration: Redruff saving Runtie.]

Before the chicks could fly they had a meeting with old Cuddy; though it
was June, he was out with his gun. Up the third ravine he went, and
Tike, his dog, ranging ahead, came so dangerously near the Brownie brood
that Redruff ran to meet him, and by the old but never-failing trick led
him on a foolish chase away back down the valley of the Don.

But Cuddy, as it chanced, came right along, straight for the brood, and
Brownie, giving the signal to the children, '_Krrr, krrr_' (Hide, hide),
ran to lead the man away just as her mate had led the dog. Full of a
mother's devoted love, and skilled in the learning of the woods she ran
in silence till quite near, then sprang with a roar of wings right in
his face, and tumbling on the leaves she shammed a lameness that for a
moment deceived the poacher. But when she dragged one wing and whined
about his feet, then slowly crawled away, he knew just what it
meant--that it was all a trick to lead him from her brood, and he struck
at her a savage blow; but little Brownie was quick, she avoided the blow
and limped behind a sapling, there to beat herself upon the leaves
again in sore distress, and seem so lame that Cuddy made another try to
strike her down with a stick. But she moved in time to balk him, and
bravely, steadfast still to lead him from her helpless little ones, she
flung herself before him and beat her gentle breast upon the ground, and
moaned as though begging for mercy. And Cuddy, failing again to strike
her, raised his gun, and firing charge enough to kill a bear, he blew
poor brave, devoted Brownie into quivering, bloody rags.

This gunner brute knew the young must be hiding near, so looked about to
find them. But no one moved or peeped. He saw not one, but as he tramped
about with heedless, hateful feet, he crossed and crossed again their
hiding-ground, and more than one of the silent little sufferers he
trampled to death, and neither knew nor cared.

Redruff had taken the yellow brute away off down-stream, and now
returned to where he left his mate. The murderer had gone, taking her
remains, to be thrown to the dog. Redruff sought about and found the
bloody spot with feathers, Brownie's feathers, scattered around, and now
he knew the meaning of that shot.

Who can tell what his horror and his mourning were? The outward signs
were few, some minutes dumbly gazing at the place with downcast,
draggled look, and then a change at the thought of their helpless brood.
Back to the hiding-place he went, and called the well-known '_Kreet,
kreet_.' Did every grave give up its little inmate at the magic word?
No, barely more than half; six little balls of down unveiled their
lustrous eyes, and, rising, ran to meet him, but four feathered little
bodies had found their graves indeed. Redruff called again and again,
till he was sure that all who could respond had come, then led them from
that dreadful place, far, far away up-stream, where barbed-wire fences
and bramble thickets were found to offer a less grateful, but more
reliable, shelter.

Here the brood grew and were trained by their father just as his mother
had trained him; though wider knowledge and experience gave him many
advantages. He knew so well the country round and all the
feeding-grounds, and how to meet the ills that harass partridge-life,
that the summer passed and not a chick was lost. They grew and
flourished, and when the Gunner Moon arrived they were a fine family of
six grown-up grouse with Redruff, splendid in his gleaming copper
feathers, at their head. He had ceased to drum during the summer after
the loss of Brownie, but drumming is to the partridge what singing is to
the lark; while it is his love-song, it is also an expression of
exuberance born of health, and when the molt was over and September food
and weather had renewed his splendid plumes and braced him up again, his
spirits revived, and finding himself one day near the old log he mounted
impulsively, and drummed again and again.

From that time he often drummed, while his children sat around, or one
who showed his father's blood would mount some nearby stump or stone,
and beat the air in the loud tattoo.

The black grapes and the Mad Moon now came on. But Redruff's brood were
of a vigorous stock; their robust health meant robust wits, and though
they got the craze, it passed within a week, and only three had flown
away for good.

Redruff, with his remaining three, was living in the glen when the snow
came. It was light, flaky snow, and as the weather was not very cold,
the family squatted for the night under the low, flat boughs of a
cedar-tree. But next day the storm continued, it grew colder, and the
drifts piled up all day. At night the snowfall ceased, but the frost
grew harder still, so Redruff, leading the family to a birch-tree above
a deep drift, dived into the snow, and the others did the same. Then
into the holes the wind blew the loose snow--their pure white
bed-*clothes, and thus tucked in they slept in comfort, for the snow is
a warm wrap, and the air passes through it easily enough for breathing.
Next morning each partridge found a solid wall of ice before him from
his frozen breath, but easily turned to one side and rose on the wing at
Redruff's morning '_Kreet, kreet, kwit_.' (Come children, come children,
fly.)

This was the first night for them in a snowdrift, though it was an old
story to Redruff, and next night they merrily dived again into bed, and
the north wind tucked them in as before. But a change of weather was
brewing. The night wind veered to the east. A fall of heavy flakes gave
place to sleet, and that to silver rain. The whole wide world was
sheathed in ice, and when the grouse awoke to quit their beds, they
found themselves sealed in with a great, cruel sheet of edgeless ice.

The deeper snow was still quite soft, and Redruff bored his way to the
top, but there the hard, white sheet defied his strength. Hammer and
struggle as he might he could make no impression, and only bruised his
wings and head. His life had been made up of keen joys and dull
hardships, with frequent sudden desperate straits, but this seemed the
hardest brunt of all, as the slow hours wore on and found him weakening
with his struggles, but no nearer to freedom. He could hear the
struggling of his family, too, or sometimes heard them calling to him
for help with their long-drawn plaintive '_p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e,
p-e-e-e-e-e-t-e_.'

They were hidden from many of their enemies, but not from the pangs of
hunger, and when the night came down the weary prisoners, worn out with
hunger and useless toil, grew quiet in despair. At first they had been
afraid the fox would come and find them imprisoned there at his mercy,
but as the second night went slowly by they no longer cared, and even
wished he would come and break the crusted snow, and so give them at
least a fighting chance for life.

But when the fox really did come padding over the frozen drift, the
deep-laid love of life revived, and they crouched in utter stillness
till he passed. The second day was one of driving storm. The north wind
sent his snow-horses, hissing and careering over the white earth,
tossing and curling their white manes and kicking up more snow as they
dashed on. The long, hard grinding of the granular snow seemed to be
thinning the snow-crust, for though far from dark below, it kept on
growing lighter. Redruff had pecked and pecked at the under side all
day, till his head ached and his bill was wearing blunt, but when the
sun went down he seemed as far as ever from escape. The night passed
like the others, except no fox went trotting overhead. In the morning he
renewed his pecking, though now with scarcely any force, and the voices
or struggles of the others were no more heard. As the daylight grew
stronger he could see that his long efforts had made a brighter spot
above him in the snow, and he continued feebly pecking. Outside, the
storm-horses kept on trampling all day, the crust was really growing
thin under their heels, and late that afternoon his bill went through
into the open air. New life came with this gain, and he pecked away,
till just before the sun went down he had made a hole that his head, his
neck, and his ever-beautiful ruffs could pass. His great, broad
shoulders were too large, but he could now strike downward, which gave
him fourfold force; the snow-crust crumbled quickly, and in a little
while he sprang from his icy prison once more free. But the young ones!
Redruff flew to the nearest bank, hastily gathered a few red hips to
stay his gnawing hunger, then returned to the prison-drift and clucked
and stamped. He got only one reply, a feeble '_peete, peete_,' and
scratching with his sharp claws on the thinned granular sheet he soon
broke through, and Graytail feebly crawled out of the hole. But that was
all; the others, scattered he could not tell where in the drift, made no
reply, gave no sign of life, and he was forced to leave them. When the
snow melted in the spring their bodies came to view, skin, bones, and
feathers--nothing more.




VII


It was long before Redruff and Graytail fully recovered, but food and
rest in plenty are sure cure-alls, and a bright, clear day in midwinter
had the usual effect of setting the vigorous Redruff to drumming on the
log. Was it the drumming, or the tell-tale tracks of their snowshoes on
the omnipresent snow, that betrayed them to Cuddy? He came prowling
again and again up the ravine, with dog and gun, intent to hunt the
partridges down. They knew him of old, and he was coming now to know
them well. That great copper-ruffed cock was becoming famous up and down
the valley. During the Gunner Moon many a one had tried to end his
splendid life, just as a worthless wretch of old sought fame by burning
the Ephesian wonder of the world. But Redruff was deep in woodcraft. He
knew just where to hide, and when to rise on silent wing, and when to
squat till overstepped, then rise on thunder wing within a yard to
shield himself at once behind some mighty tree-trunk and speed away.

But Cuddy never ceased to follow with his gun that red-ruffed cock; many
a long snap-shot he tried, but somehow always found a tree, a bank, or
some safe shield between, and Redruff lived and throve and drummed.

When the Snow Moon came he moved with Graytail to the Castle Frank
woods, where food was plenty as well as grand old trees. There was in
particular, on the east slope among the creeping hemlocks, a splendid
pine. It was six feet through, and its first branches began at the tops
of the other trees. Its top in summer-time was a famous resort for the
bluejay and his bride. Here, far beyond the reach of shot, in warm
spring days the jay would sing and dance before his mate, spread his
bright blue plumes and warble the sweetest fairyland music, so sweet and
soft that few hear it but the one for whom it is meant, and books know
nothing at all about it.

This great pine had an especial interest for Redruff, now living near
with his remaining young one, but its base, not its far-away crown,
concerned him. All around were low, creeping hemlocks, and among them
the partridge-vine and the wintergreen grew, and the sweet black acorns
could be scratched from under the snow. There was no better
feeding-ground, for when that insatiable gunner came on them there it
was easy to run low among the hemlock to the great pine, then rise with
a derisive _whirr_ behind its bulk, and keeping the huge trunk in line
with the deadly gun, skim off in safety. A dozen times at least the pine
had saved them during the lawful murder season, and here it was that
Cuddy, knowing their feeding habits, laid a new trap. Under the bank he
sneaked and watched in ambush while an accomplice went around the Sugar
Loaf to drive the birds. He came trampling through the low thicket where
Redruff and Graytail were feeding, and long before the gunner was
dangerously near Redruff gave a low warning '_rrr-rrr_' (danger) and
walked quickly toward the great pine in case they had to rise.

Graytail was some distance up the hill, and suddenly caught sight of a
new foe close at hand, the yellow cur, coming right on. Redruff, much
farther off, could not see him for the bushes, and Graytail became
greatly alarmed.

'_Kwit, kwit_' (Fly, fly), she cried, running down the hill for a start.
'_Kreet, k-r-r-r_' (This way, hide), cried the cooler Redruff, for he
saw that now the man with the gun was getting in range. He gained the
great trunk, and behind it, as he paused a moment to call earnestly to
Graytail, 'This way, this way,' he heard a slight noise under the bank
before him that betrayed the ambush, then there was a terrified cry from
Graytail as the dog sprang at her, she rose in air and skimmed behind
the shielding trunk, away from the gunner in the open, right into the
power of the miserable wretch under the bank.

_Whirr_, and up she went, a beautiful, sentient, noble being.

_Bang_, and down she fell--battered and bleeding, to gasp her life out
and to lie a rumpled mass of carrion in the snow.

It was a perilous place for Redruff. There was no chance for a safe
rise, so he squatted low. The dog came within ten feet of him, and the
stranger, coming across to Cuddy, passed at five feet, but he never
moved till a chance came to slip behind the great trunk away from both.
Then he safely rose and flew to the lonely glen by Taylor's Hill.

One by one the deadly cruel gun had stricken his near ones down, till
now, once more, he was alone. The Snow Moon slowly passed with many a
narrow escape, and Redruff, now known to be the only survivor of his
kind, was relentlessly pursued, and grew wilder every day.

It seemed, at length, a waste of time to follow him with a gun, so when
the snow was deepest, and food scarcest, Cuddy hatched a new plot. Right
across the feeding-ground, almost the only good one now in the Stormy
Moon, he set a row of snares. A cottontail rabbit, an old friend, cut
several of these with his sharp teeth, but some remained, and Redruff,
watching a far-off speck that might turn out a hawk, trod right in one
of them, and in an instant was jerked into the air to dangle by one
foot.

Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man to
inflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow-creature, simply because
that creature does not speak his language? All that day, with growing,
racking pains, poor Redruff hung and beat his great, strong wings in
helpless struggles to be free. All day, all night, with growing torture,
until he only longed for death. But no one came. The morning broke, the
day wore on, and still he hung there, slowly dying; his very strength a
curse. The second night crawled slowly down, and when, in the dawdling
hours of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by the feeble flutter of a
dying wing, cut short the pain, the deed was wholly kind.

       *       *       *       *       *

The wind blew down the valley from the north. The snow-horses went
racing over the wrinkled ice, over the Don Flats, and over the marsh
toward the lake, white, for they were driven snow, but on them,
scattered dark, were riding plumy fragments of partridge ruffs--the
famous rainbow ruffs. And they rode on the wind that night, away, away
to the south, over the dark lake, as they rode in the gloom of his Mad
Moon flight, riding and riding on till they were engulfed, the last
trace of the last of the Don Valley race.

For no partridge is heard in Castle Frank now--and in Mud Creek Ravine
the old pine drum-log, unused, has rotted in silence away.





RAGGYLUG

THE STORY OF A COTTONTAIL RABBIT


Raggylug, or Rag, was the name of a young cottontail rabbit. It was
given him from his torn and ragged ear, a life-mark that he got in his
first adventure. He lived with his mother in Olifant's swamp, where I
made their acquaintance and gathered, in a hundred different ways, the
little bits of proof and scraps of truth that at length enabled me to
write this history.

Those who do not know the animals well may think I have humanized them,
but those who have lived so near them as to know somewhat of their ways
and their minds will not think so.

Truly rabbits have no speech as we understand it, but they have a way of
conveying ideas by a system of sounds, signs, scents, whisker-touches,
movements, and example that answers the purpose of speech; and it must
be remembered that though in telling this story I freely translate from
rabbit into English, _I repeat nothing that they did not say_.




I


The rank swamp grass bent over and concealed the snug nest where
Raggylug's mother had hidden him. She had partly covered him with some
of the bedding, and, as always, her last warning was to 'lay low and say
nothing, whatever happens.' Though tucked in bed, he was wide awake and
his bright eyes were taking in that part of his little green world that
was straight above. A bluejay and a red-squirrel, two notorious thieves,
were loudly berating each other for stealing, and at one time Rag's home
bush was the centre of their fight; a yellow warbler caught a blue
butterfly but six inches from his nose, and a scarlet and black ladybug,
serenely waving her knobbed feelers, took a long walk up one grassblade,
down another, and across the nest and over Rag's face--and yet he never
moved nor even winked.

[Illustration: 'Mammy, Mammy!' he screamed, in mortal terror.]

After awhile he heard a strange rustling of the leaves in the near
thicket. It was an odd, continuous sound, and though it went this way
and that way and came ever nearer, there was no patter of feet with
it. Rag had lived his whole life in the swamp (he was three weeks old)
and yet had never heard anything like this. Of course his curiosity was
greatly aroused. His mother had cautioned him to lay low, but that was
understood to be in case of danger, and this strange sound without
footfalls could not be any to fear.

The low rasping went past close at hand, then to the right, then back,
and seemed going away. Rag felt he knew what he was about, he wasn't a
baby; it was his duty to learn what it was. He slowly raised his
roly-poly body on his short, fluffy legs, lifted his little round head
above the covering of his nest and peeped out into the woods. The sound
had ceased as soon as he moved. He saw nothing, so took one step forward
to a clear view, and instantly found himself face to face with an
enormous Black Serpent.

"Mammy," he screamed in mortal terror as the monster darted at him. With
all the strength of his tiny limbs he tried to run. But in a flash the
Snake had him by one ear and whipped around him with his coils to gloat
over the helpless little baby bunny he had secured for dinner.

"Mammy--Mammy," gasped poor little Raggylug as the cruel monster began
slowly choking him to death. Very soon the little one's cry would have
ceased, but bounding through the woods straight as an arrow came Mammy.
No longer a shy, helpless little Molly Cottontail, ready to fly from a
shadow: the mother's love was strong in her. The cry of her baby had
filled her with the courage of a hero, and-hop, she went over that
horrible reptile. Whack, she struck down at him with her sharp hind
claws as she passed, giving him such a stinging blow that he squirmed
with pain and hissed with anger.

"M-a-m-m-y," came feebly from the little one. And Mammy came leaping
again and again and struck harder and fiercer until the loathsome
reptile let go the little one's ear and tried to bite the old one as she
leaped over. But all he got was a mouthful of wool each time, and
Molly's fierce blows began to tell, as long bloody rips were torn in the
Black Snake's scaly armor.

Things were now looking bad for the Snake; and bracing himself for the
next charge, he lost his tight hold on Baby Bunny, who at once wriggled
out of the coils and away into the underbrush, breathless and terribly
frightened, but unhurt save that his left ear was much torn by the
teeth of that dreadful Serpent.

Molly had now gained all she wanted. She had no notion of fighting for
glory or revenge. Away she went into the woods and the little one
followed the shining beacon of her snow-white tail until she led him to
a safe corner of the Swamp.




II


Old Olifant's Swamp was a rough, brambly tract of second-growth woods,
with a marshy pond and a stream through the middle. A few ragged
remnants of the old forest still stood in it and a few of the still
older trunks were lying about as dead logs in the brushwood. The land
about the pond was of that willow-grown, sedgy kind that cats and horses
avoid, but that cattle do not fear. The drier zones were overgrown with
briars and young trees. The outermost belt of all, that next the fields,
was of thrifty, gummy-trunked young pines whose living needles in air
and dead ones on earth offer so delicious an odor to the nostrils of the
passer-by, and so deadly a breath to those seedlings that would compete
with them for the worthless waste they grow on.

All around for a long way were smooth fields, and the only wild tracks
that ever crossed these fields were those of a thoroughly bad and
unscrupulous fox that lived only too near.

The chief indwellers of the swamp were Molly and Rag. Their nearest
neighbors were far away, and their nearest kin were dead. This was their
home, and here they lived together, and here Rag received the training
that made his success in life.

Molly was a good little mother and gave him a careful bringing up. The
first thing he learned was 'to lay low and say nothing.' His adventure
with the snake taught him the wisdom of this. Rag never forgot that
lesson; afterward he did as he was told, and it made the other things
come more easily.

The second lesson he learned was 'freeze.' It grows out of the first,
and Rag was taught it as soon as he could run.

'Freezing' is simply doing nothing, turning into a statue. As soon as he
finds a foe near, no matter what he is doing, a well-trained Cottontail
keeps just as he is and stops all movement, for the creatures of the
woods are of the same color as the things in the woods and catch the eye
only while moving. So when enemies chance together, the one who first
sees the other can keep himself unseen by 'freezing' and thus have all
the advantage of choosing the time for attack or escape. Only those who
live in the woods know the importance of this; every wild creature and
every hunter must learn it; all learn to do it well, but not one of them
can beat Molly Cottontail in the doing. Rag's mother taught him this
trick by example. When the white cotton cushion that she always carried
to sit on went bobbing away through the woods, of course Rag ran his
hardest to keep up. But when Molly stopped and 'froze,' the natural wish
to copy made him do the same.

       *       *       *       *       *

But the best lesson of all that Rag learned from his mother was the
secret of the Brierbrush. It is a very old secret now, and to make it
plain you must first hear why the Brierbrush quarrelled with the beasts.

     _Long ago the Roses used to grow on bushes that had no thorns. But
     the Squirrels and Mice used to climb after them, the cattle used to
     knock them off with their horns, the Possum would twitch them off
     with his long tail, and the Deer, with his sharp hoofs, would break
     them down. So the Brierbrush armed itself with spikes to protect
     its roses and declared eternal war on all creatures that climbed
     trees, or had horns, or hoofs, or long tails. This left the
     Brierbrush at peace with none but Molly Cottontail, who could not
     climb, was hornless, hoof-less and had scarcely any tail at all.

     In truth the Cottontail had never harmed a Brierrose, and having
     now so many enemies the Rose took the Rabbit into especial
     friendship, and when dangers are threatening poor Bunny he flies to
     the nearest Brierbrush, certain that it is ready, with a million
     keen and poisoned daggers, to defend him._

So the secret that Rag learned from his mother was, 'The Brierbrush is
your best friend.'

Much of the time that season was spent in learning the lay of the land,
and the bramble and brier mazes. And Rag learned them so well that he
could go all around the swamp by two different ways and never leave the
friendly briers at any place for more than five hops.

It is not long since the foes of the Cottontails were disgusted to find
that man had brought a new kind of bramble and planted it in long lines
throughout the country. It was so strong that no creatures could break
it down, and so sharp that the toughest skin was torn by it. Each year
there was more of it and each year it became a more serious matter to
the wild creatures. But Molly Cottontail had no fear of it. She was not
brought up in the briers for nothing. Dogs and foxes, cattle and sheep,
and even man himself might be torn by those fearful spikes: but Molly
understands it and lives and thrives under it. And the further it
spreads the more safe country there is for the Cottontail. And the name
of this new and dreaded bramble is--_the barbed-wire fence_.




III


Molly had no other children to look after now, so Rag had all her care.
He was unusually quick and bright as well as strong, and he had
uncommonly good chances; so he got on remarkably well.

All the season she kept him busy learning the tricks of the trail, and
what to eat and drink and what not to touch. Day by day she worked to
train him; little by little she taught him, putting into his mind
hundreds of ideas that her own life or early training had stored in
hers, and so equipped him with the knowledge that makes life possible to
their kind.

Close by her side in the clover-field or the thicket he would sit and
copy her when she wobbled her nose 'to keep her smeller clear,' and
pull the bite from her mouth or taste her lips to make sure he was
getting the same kind of fodder. Still copying her, he learned to comb
his ears with his claws and to dress his coat and to bite the burrs out
of his vest and socks. He learned, too, that nothing but clear dewdrops
from the briers were fit for a rabbit to drink, as water which has once
touched the earth must surely bear some taint. Thus he began the study
of woodcraft, the oldest of all sciences.

As soon as Rag was big enough to go out alone, his mother taught him the
signal code. Rabbits telegraph each other by thumping on the ground with
their hind feet. Along the ground sound carries far; a thump that at six
feet from the earth is not heard at twenty yards will, near the ground,
be heard at least one hundred yards. Rabbits have very keen hearing, and
so might hear this same thump at two hundred yards, and that would reach
from end to end of Olifant's Swamp. A single _thump_ means 'look out' or
'freeze.' A slow _thump thump_ means 'come.' A fast _thump thump_ means
'danger;' and a very fast _thump thump thump_ means 'run for dear life.'

At another time, when the weather was fine and the bluejays were
quarrelling among themselves, a sure sign that no dangerous foe was
about, Rag began a new study. Molly, by flattening her ears, gave the
sign to squat. Then she ran far away in the thicket and gave the
thumping signal for 'come.' Rag set out at a run to the place but could
not find Molly. He thumped, but got no reply. Setting carefully about
his search he found her foot-scent, and following this strange guide,
that the beasts all know so well and man does not know at all, he worked
out the trail and found her where she was hidden. Thus he got his first
lesson in trailing, and thus it was that the games of hide and seek they
played became the schooling for the serious chase of which there was so
much in his after-life.

Before that first season of schooling was over he had learnt all the
principal tricks by which a rabbit lives, and in not a few problems
showed himself a veritable genius.

He was an adept at 'tree,' 'dodge,' and 'squat;' he could play
'log-lump' with 'wind,' and 'baulk' with 'back-track' so well that he
scarcely needed any other tricks. He had not yet tried it, but he knew
just how to play 'barb-wire,' which is a new trick of the brilliant
order; he had made a special study of 'sand,' which burns up all scent,
and he was deeply versed in 'change-off,' 'fence,' and 'double,' as
well as 'hole-up,' which is a trick requiring longer notice, and yet he
never forgot that 'lay-low' is the beginning of all wisdom and
'brierbrush' the only trick that is always safe.

He was taught the signs by which to know all his foes and then the way
to baffle them. For hawks, owls, foxes, hounds, curs, minks, weasels,
cats, skunks, coons, and men, each have a different plan of pursuit, and
for each and all of these evils he was taught a remedy.

And for knowledge of the enemy's approach he learnt to depend first on
himself and his mother, and then on the bluejay. "Never neglect the
bluejay's warning," said Molly; "he is a mischief-maker, a marplot, and
a thief all the time, but nothing escapes him. He wouldn't mind harming
us, but he cannot, thanks to the briers, and his enemies are ours, so it
is well to heed him. If the woodpecker cries a warning you can trust
him, he is honest; but he is a fool beside the bluejay, and though the
bluejay often tells lies for mischief you are safe to believe him when
he brings ill news."

The barbed-wire trick takes a deal of nerve and the best of legs. It was
long before Rag ventured to play it, but as he came to his full powers
it became one of his favorites.

"It's fine play for those who can do it," said Molly. "First you lead
off your dog on a straightaway and warm him up a bit by nearly letting
him catch you. Then keeping just one hop ahead, you lead him at a long
slant full tilt into a breast-high barb-wire. I've seen many a dog and
fox crippled, and one big hound killed outright this way. But I've also
seen more than one rabbit lose his life in trying it."

Rag early learnt what some rabbits never learn at all, that 'hole-up' is
not such a fine ruse as it seems; it may be the certain safety of a wise
rabbit, but soon or late is a sure death-trap to a fool. A young rabbit
always thinks of it first, an old rabbit never tries it till all others
fail. It means escape from a man or dog, a fox or a bird of prey, but it
means sudden death if the foe is a ferret, mink, skunk, or weasel.

There were but two ground-holes in the Swamp. One on the Sunning Bank,
which was a dry sheltered knoll in the South-end. It was open and
sloping to the sun, and here on fine days the Cottontails took their
sunbaths. They stretched out among the fragrant pine needles and
winter-green in odd, cat-like positions, and turned slowly over as
though roasting and wishing all sides well done. And they blinked and
panted, and squirmed as if in dreadful pain; yet this was one of the
keenest enjoyments they knew.

Just over the brow of the knoll was a large pine stump. Its grotesque
roots wriggled out above the yellow sand-bank like dragons, and under
their protecting claws a sulky old woodchuck had digged a den long ago.
He became more sour and ill-tempered as weeks went by, and one day
waited to quarrel with Olifant's dog instead of going in, so that Molly
Cottontail was able to take possession of the den an hour later.

This, the pine-root hole, was afterward very coolly taken by a
self-sufficient young skunk, who with less valor might have enjoyed
greater longevity, for he imagined that even man with a gun would fly
from him. Instead of keeping Molly from the den for good, therefore, his
reign, like that of a certain Hebrew king, was over in four days.

The other, the fern-hole, was in a fern thicket next the clover field.
It was small and damp, and useless except as a last retreat. It also was
the work of a woodchuck, a well-meaning, friendly neighbor, but a
hare-brained youngster whose skin in the form of a whip-lash was now
developing higher horse-power in the Olifant working team.

"Simple justice," said the old man, "for that hide was raised on stolen
feed that the team would 'a' turned into horse-power anyway."

The Cottontails were now sole owners of the holes, and did not go near
them when they could help it, lest anything like a path should be made
that might betray these last retreats to an enemy.

There was also the hollow hickory, which, though nearly fallen, was
still green, and had the great advantage of being open at both ends.
This had long been the residence of one Lotor, a solitary old coon whose
ostensible calling was frog-hunting, and who, like the monks of old, was
supposed to abstain from all flesh food. But it was shrewdly suspected
that he needed but a chance to indulge in a diet of rabbit. When at last
one dark night he was killed while raiding Olifant's hen-house, Molly,
so far from feeling a pang of regret, took possession of his cosy nest
with a sense of unbounded relief.




IV


Bright August sunlight was flooding the Swamp in the morning. Everything
seemed soaking in the warm radiance. A little brown swamp-sparrow was
teetering on a long rush in the pond. Beneath him there were open spaces
of dirty water that brought down a few scraps of the blue sky, and
worked it and the yellow duckweed into an exquisite mosaic, with a
little wrong-side picture of the bird in the middle. On the bank behind
was a great vigorous growth of golden green skunk-cabbage, that cast a
dense shadow over the brown swamp tussocks.

The eyes of the swamp-sparrow were not trained to take in the color
glories, but he saw what we might have missed; that two of the
numberless leafy brown bumps under the broad cabbage-leaves were furry,
living things, with noses that never ceased to move up and down whatever
else was still.

It was Molly and Rag. They were stretched under the skunk-cabbage, not
because they liked its rank smell, but because the winged ticks could
not stand it at all and so left them in peace.