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, but 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. Redniff 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
snow-shoes and icecreepers. 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 be 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 Hunger Moon, our February, seemed really to lend some point
to the ditty, and they dedoubled 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 Silver-spot, 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 thcre 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-rr'rr'

'Thump, thump, th un der-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 snowshoes were wholly shed from his feet. His ruff grew
finer, his eye brighter, and his whole appearance splendid to
behold, as he strutted an-d flashed in the sun. But--oh! he was so
lone-some 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 Г¶ strutted and
uttered a low, soft chuckle that must have been 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 out her, so close at
hand. So it was not quite all mischance, perhaps, that little stamp
that 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 dustingplace,
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
procession of downlings with the Run tie straggling far in the rear.
Redruff, yards behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had
escaped the 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.

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 downstream, 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
wellknown '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, and led them from that dreadful place, far, far away
up-stream, where barb-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 lovesong, 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 himself 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
blood 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 snow-fall    
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, hut 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 snow-drift, 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 them  selves 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 desper  ate 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 'peek, 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 snow-shoes 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
copperruffed 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 snapshot 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
hemlocks 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 'rrrrr' (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, mere 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 winter wind
that night, away and away to the south, over the dark and
boisterous 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 now no partridge comes to Castle Frank. Its wood-birds miss
the martial spring salutc, and in Mud Creek Ravine the old pine
drumlog, since unused, has rotted in silence away.