Rolf in the Woods

“Then all was confusion. Every one tried to escape, and Kaluskap, in revenge, tried to kill the Shingebis. But the diver ran for the water and, just as he reached the edge, Kaluskap gave him a kick behind that sent him half a mile, but it knocked off all his tail feathers and twisted his shape so that ever since his legs have stuck out where his tail was, and he cannot rise from the land or the ice. I know it is so, for my father, Cos Cob, told me it was true, and we ourselves have seen it. It is ever so. To go against Kaluskap brings much evil to brood over.”

A few nights later, as they sat by their fire in the cabin, a curious squeaking was heard behind the logs. They had often heard it before, but never so much as now. Skookum turned his head on one side, set his ears at forward cock. Presently, from a hole ’twixt logs and chimney, there appeared a small, white breasted mouse.

Its nose and ears shivered a little; its black eyes danced in the firelight. It climbed up to a higher log, scratched its ribs, then rising on its hind legs, uttered one or two squeaks like those they had heard so often, but soon they became louder and continuous:

“Peg, peo, peo, peo, peo, peo, peo, oo. Tree, tree, tree, tree, trrrrrrr. Turr, turr, turr, tur, tur. Wee, wee, wee, we.”

The little creature was sitting up high on its hind legs, its belly muscles were working, its mouth was gaping as it poured out its music. For fully half a minute this went on, when Skookum made a dash; but the mouse was quick and it flashed into the safety of its cranny.

Rolf gazed at Quonab inquiringly.

“That is Mish-a-boh-quas, the singing mouse. He always comes to tell of war. In a little while there will be fighting.”

Chapter 66. A Lesson in Stalking

“Did you ever see any fighting, Quonab?”

“Ugh! In Revolution, scouted for General Gates.”

“Judging by the talk, we’re liable to be called on before a year. What will you do?”

“Fight.”

“As soldier?”

“No! scout.”

“They may not want us.”

“Always want scouts,” replied the Indian.

“It seems to me I ought to start training now.”

“You have been training.”

“How is that?”

“A scout is everything that an army is, but it’s all in one man. An’ he don’t have to keep step.”

“I see, I see,” replied Rolf, and he realized that a scout is merely a trained hunter who is compelled by war to hunt his country’s foes instead of the beasts of the woods.

“See that?” said the Indian, and he pointed to a buck that was nosing for cranberries in the open expanse across the river where it left the lake. “Now, I show you scouting.” He glanced at the smoke from the fire, found it right for his plan, and said: “See! I take my bow. No cover, yet I will come close and kill that deer.”

Then began a performance that was new to Rolf, and showed that the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head, and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door, and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and columnar neck to look around. There was no cover but creeping herbage. Rolf suspected that the Indian would decoy the buck by some whistle or challenge, for the thickness of its neck showed the deer to be in fighting humour.

Flat on his breast the Indian lay. His knees and elbow seemed to develop centipedic power; his head was a mere clump of growing stuff. He snaked his way quietly for twenty-five yards, then came to the open, sloping shore, with the river forty yards wide of level shining ice, all in plain view of the deer; how was this to be covered?

There is a well-known peculiarity of the white tail that the Indian was counting on; when its head is down grazing, even though not hidden, the deer does not see distant objects; before the head is raised, its tail is raised or shaken. Quonab knew that if he could keep the tail in view, he could avoid being viewed by the head. In a word, only an ill-timed movement or a whiff could betray him.

The open ice was, of course, a hard test, and the hunter might have failed, but that his long form looked like one of the logs that were lying about half stranded or frozen in the stream.