CHAPTER V
A TUSSLE WITH A WILD-CAT
"Bob-Cat was telling me," said Wilbur, as with the Ranger he rodethrough the arid and silvered grayness of the Mohave desert and reachedthe foothill country, "that before you entered the Service you werepretty well known as a hunter."
"Wa'al, son," the mountaineer replied, "I reckon I've done some kind o'huntin' for fifty years on end. But there's not much huntin' in thispart o' the country."
"No," said Wilbur, looking around him, "I guess there isn't."
The road ran along a little gully with a small stream shaded by scruboak, but arising from this and similar gullies, in great rounded bosses,heaved the barren slopes, the grass already turning yellow and toosparse to cloak the red earth below.
"Yet," said Rifle-Eye, pointing with his finger as he spoke, "there's adesert fox."
Wilbur strained his eyes to see, but the unfamiliar growth of cacti,sage-brush, palo verde, and the dusty-miller plants made quick visiondifficult. In a moment, however, he caught sight of the littlereddish-gray animal running swiftly and almost indistinguishable fromits surroundings.
"But up there?" queried the boy, pointing in front of them. The roadwound onward toward the middle Sierras, thickly wooded with oak anddigger pine, and, of course, the chapparal, and towering to the cloudsrose the mighty serrated peaks of the range, where magnificent forestsof pine, fir, and cedar swept upwards to the limits of eternal snow. "Upthere the hunting must be wonderful."
"Among the mount'ns!" said the old hunter slowly. "Wa'al, up there, yousee, is home."
"You certainly can't complain about the looks of your home, then," saidthe boy, "for that's just about the finest I've ever seen."
"'There's no place like home,'" quoted Rifle-Eye quietly, "but I ain'tever feelin' that my home's so humble. It ain't a question of its bein'good enough fer me, it's a question o' whether I'm good enough fer it."
"It makes quite a house," said Wilbur, following the old mountaineer'sline of thought.
"I've never lived in any smaller house than that," responded Rifle-Eye,"an' I reckon now I never will. There's some I know that boasts ofownin' a few feet o' space shut in by a brick wall. Not for me. My houseis as far as my eyes c'n see, an' from the ground to the sky."
Wilbur was silent for a moment, feeling the thrill of Nature in the oldman's speech.
"It's to be my home, too," he said gently.
Rifle-Eye smiled at the lad.
"I don't know that I'm quite the oldest inhabitant," he said, "but Isure am the oldest Ranger in the Service, an' all I c'n say is, 'Makeyerself to home.'"
"All right," said Wilbur promptly, "I'll take that as an officialwelcome from the Sierras, and I will. But," he added, "you were going totell me about your hunting. I should think it would be great sport."
"Son," said Rifle-Eye somewhat sharply, "I never killed a harmlesscritter 'for sport,' as you call it, in my life."
"But I thought," gasped Wilbur in astonishment, "that you were huntingnearly all the time, before you started in as Ranger."
"So I was," was the quiet reply.
"But--but I don't quite see--" Wilbur stopped lamely.
"I said before," resumed the old hunter, "that I never killed a harmlesscritter onless I had to. Neither have I. Varmints, o' course, is adifferent matter. I've shot plenty o' them, an' once in a while I've hadter kill fer food. But just shootin' for the sake o' shootin' is thetrick of a coward or a fool or a tenderfoot or a mixture of all three.It's plumb unnecessary, an' it's dead wrong."
"You mean shooting deer and so forth?"
"I mean just that, son, if the shootin's only fer antlers an' what thesehere greenhorns calls 'trophies.' If venison is needed, why, I ain't gotnothin' to say. A man's life is worth more than a deer's when he needsfood, but a man's conceit ain't worth more than a deer's life."
"How about bear, then, and trapping for skins?" asked the boy.
"I said 'harmless critters.' Now, a bear ain't harmless, leastways, notas you'd notice it. Bear will take young stock, an' they're particularlypartial to young pig, an' down among these here foothills we've beenpassin' through there's a lot o' shiftless hog-rustlers as depends onpork fer a livin'. As for bearskins, why, o' course you use the pelts.What's the idee o' leavin' them around? It ain't any kind o' good tryin'to spare an animal's feelin's when he's plenty good an' dead. But I'vemade this here section of the Sierras pretty hot for wolves."
"I heard down at the ranch," the boy remarked, "that you had baggedforty-seven wolves last season."
"I did have a good year," assented the Ranger, "an', of course, I can'tgive much time to it. But I reckon I've disposed of more'n a thousandwolves in my day, one way and another. An' as I look at it, that'smakin' pretty good use of time."
"Are wolves worse than bear?" queried Wilbur surprisedly.
"They do a lot more harm in the long run. Cattlemen reckon that a wolfwill get away with about four head a year. Myself, I think that'spressin' the average some; I'd put it at somewhere between two an'three. But it's generally figured at four."
"I didn't know that wolves, lone wolves, would attack cattle."
"It's calves an' yearlin's mostly that they go for. It ain't often thatyou see a wolf tacklin' anythin' bigger'n a two-year-old. But if youfigure that a wolf gets rid o' four head a year, an' inflicts himself ona sufferin' community for a space of about ten years, that's somewherein the neighborhood o' forty head. A thousand wolves means about fortythousand head of cattle, or pretty nigh a million dollars' worth ofstock."
"The beef you've saved by killing wolves," commented Wilbur, "would feedquite a town."
"Forty thousand is a tolerable sized bunch. An' that's without figurin'on the wolf cubs there would have been durin' all those years from theolder ones whose matrimonial expectations I disappointed plenty abrupt.An' it makes a pile o' difference to cattlemen to know they c'n send aherd grazin' on the national forest, an' be fairly sure they won't losemuch by varmints."
"It surely must," said the boy. "But I hadn't realized that wolves weresuch a danger."
"I wouldn't go to say that they was dangerous. An old gray wolf, if youcorner him, is surly an' savage, an' will fight anythin' at any odds.Out on the Barren Grounds they're bad, but around the Sierras I ain'theard o' them attackin' humans but twice, an' they was children, lost inthe woods. I figure the kids had wandered around till they petered out,an' then, when they were exhausted, the wolves got 'em. But I've neverheard of a wolf attackin' a man anywhere in the Rockies."
"But I thought wolves ran in packs often."
"Not in the United States, son, so far as I've heard of. I knew aRussian trapper, though, who meandered down this way from Alaska in theearly days. He used to spin a lot o' yarns about the Siberian wolvesrunnin' in packs an' breakfastin' freely off travelers. But he seemed tothink that it was the horses the wolves were after chiefly, althoughthey weren't passin' up any toothsome peasant that happened along."
"And do wolves attack horses here, too?"
"Not on the trail, that fashion. But they're some partial to colts."
"How about coyotes?"
"They're mean critters an' they give a pesky lot o' trouble, althoughthey bother sheep more'n cattle. But a few husky dogs will keep coyotesat a distance, though they'll watch a chance an' sneak off with ayoung lamb or any sheep what is hurt an' has fallen behind the herd. Butthey don't worry us here such a great deal, they keep mostly to theplains an' the prairie country."
Saying this, the Ranger pulled up at the door of a shack lying a shortdistance from the road and gave a hail. Immediately there stepped fromthe door one of the largest women Wilbur had ever seen. Though her hairwas gray, and she was angular and harsh of feature, yet, standing wellover six feet and quite erect, she seemed to fit in well under theshadow of the Sierras.
"I reckon you've some bacon, Susan?" was the Ranger's greeting as heswung himself off his horse. Wilbur followed suit.
"There's somethin' awful would have to ha
ppen to a pile o' hogs," wasthe reply, "when you came by here an' couldn't get a bite."
By this time a swarm of children had come out, and Wilbur, seeing thatthe Ranger had simply resigned his horse into the hands of one of thelarger boys, did likewise and followed his guide into the house.
"I wasn't sure if I'd find you here, Susan," said the old scout whenthey were seated at a simple meal. "I thought you were goin' to moveinto town."
"I did," she replied. "I stayed thar jest two weeks. An' they was twoweeks o' misery. These yar towns is too crowded for me. Now, hogs, I'vebeen used to 'em all my life, an' I don't mind how many's around. But itonly takes a few folks to make me feel as if I was real crowded."
"Do you prefer hogs to people?" questioned Wilbur, smiling.
"Not one by one, bub, o' course," came the slow reply, "but when itcomes to a crowd o' both, I'm kind o' lost with folks. Everybody's busyan' they don't care nothin' about you, an' it makes you-all feel no'count. An' the noise is bewilderin'. Have you ever been in a city?"
Wilbur admitted that he had.
"Well, then," she said, "ye'll know what I mean. But out here, there'smore room, like, an' I know I'm bigger'n my hogs." Following which,Susan launched into a long description of her favorite porkers, whichcontinued almost without cessation until it was time for the two to beon the trail again.
"That's a queer woman," said Wilbur when they were in the saddle againand out of hearing of the shack.
"She's a good one," answered the Ranger. "Her son, by the way, is amember o' the legislature, an' a good lawyer, an' she's made him what heis. But she ain't the city kind."
"Not with all those children," said Wilbur. "She'd have to hire a blockto keep them all."
"Those ain't her own children," replied the Ranger, "not a bit of it. Ifa youngster gits orphaned or laid up she just says 'Pork's plenty, send'em to me.' An' I generally do. Other folks do, too, an' quite a few o'them hev been brought her by the 'little white lady' you've been hearingabout. She's fonder o' children than any woman I ever saw, is Susan. Butshe won't talk kids, she'll only talk hogs."
"That's pretty fine work, I think," said the boy. "But I should imaginethe youngsters wouldn't have much of a chance. It isn't any better thana backwoods life, away out there."
The old Ranger, usually so slow and deliberate in his movements, turnedon him like a flash.
"The meanest thing in this world," he said, "is not bein' able to see orwillin' to see what some one else has done for you. There ain't a homein all these here United States that don't owe its happiness to thebackwoodsman. You can't make a country civilized by sittin' in an officean' writin' the word 'civilized' on the map. Some one has got to get outan' do it, an' keep on doin' it till it's done. It was the man who hadnothin' in the world but a wife, a rifle, an' an ax who made America."
"I had forgotten for the moment," said the boy, a little taken off hisfeet by the sudden energy and the flashing speech of the usuallyimpassive mountaineer.
"So does mighty near every one else 'forget for the moment.' But if thebackwoodsman forgot for the moment he was likely to be missin' hisscalp-lock, or if he tried to take a holiday it meant his family wouldgo hungry. He never forgot his children or his children's children, butthey're none too fond o' rememberin' him.
"Everythin' you have now, he first showed you how. If he wanted a house,he had to build it; if he wanted bread, he had to raise the grain,grind, an' bake it; if he wanted clothin', he had to get skins, cure,an' sew 'em. But he never had to hunt for honor an' for courage; hebrought those with him; an' he didn't have to get any book-larnin' toteach him how to make his cabin a home, an' his wife an' his childrenwere allers joys to him, not cares. They were men! An' what do youreckon made 'em men?"
"The hardships of the life, I suppose," hazarded Wilbur.
"Not a bit of it; it was the forest. The forest was their nurse ininfancy, their playmate when they were barefooted kids runnin' aroundunder the trees, their work by day, an' their home when it was dark.They lived right down with Nature, an' they larned that if she wasrugged, she was kind. They became rugged an' kind, too. An' that's whatthe right sort of American is to this day."
"A lot of our best statesmen in early days were from the newly clearedsettlements; that's a fact," said Wilbur thoughtfully, "right up to theCivil War."
"An' through it!" added the Ranger. "How about Abe Lincoln?"
Wilbur thought to himself that perhaps "backwoodsman" was not quite afair idea of the great President's Illinois upbringing, but he thoughtit wiser not to argue the point to no profit.
"But it's all different now," continued Rifle-Eye a trifle sadly,"things have changed an' the city's beginnin' to have a bigger hold thanthe forest. An' the forest still needs, an' I reckon it allers willneed, the old kind o' men. Once we had to fight tooth an' nail agin theforest jest to get enough land to live on, an' now we've got to fightjest as hard for the forest so as there'll be enough of it for what weneed. In this here country you can't ever get away from thewoods-dweller, whether he's backwoodsman or Forester, or whatever youcall him--the man who can depend on himself an' live his life whereverthere's sky overhead an' ground underfoot an' trees between.
"They're the discoverers of America, too. Oh, yes, they are," hecontinued, noting Wilbur's look of contradiction. "It wasn't Columbus orAmerigo or any o' the floatin' adventurers who first saw a blue splotcho' land on the horizon that discovered America. It was the men whoconquered the forest, who found all, did all, an' became all that thelife demanded, that really brought into bein' America an' theAmericans."
The Ranger stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and, touching his horselightly with the spur, went on ahead up the trail. Evidently he wasthinking of the old times and the boy had wisdom enough not to disturbhim. As the afternoon drew on the foothills were left behind and theopen road became more and more enclosed, until at last it was simply atrail through the forest. The shadows were lengthening and it wasdrawing on toward evening, when the Ranger halted beside a littleravine, densely wooded with yellow pine, incense cedar, and white fir.Wilbur was tired and his horses, fresh to the trail, were showing signsof fatigue, so he was glad to stop.
"I don't know how you feel about it," said the Ranger, "but I reckonI'll camp here. There's a good spring a couple of hundred feet downstream. But you ain't used to this sort o' thing, an' maybe you'd betterkeep on the trail for another half-mile till you come to a littlesettlement. Somebody can put you up, I reckon."
"No need to," said the boy, "I'll camp here with you."
"Maybe you ain't used to sleepin' on the ground."
"I guess I can stand it, if you can," replied Wilbur promptly.
"Wa'al, I reckon I can," said the Ranger, "seein' that I always have an'always do."
Wilbur had never camped in the open before without a tent or shelter ofsome kind, but he would not for the world have had his Ranger think thathe was in the least disconcerted. Neither, to do him justice, was he,but rather anticipating the night under the open sky with a good deal ofpleasure.
After the horses were unsaddled and hobbled, Rifle-Eye told Wilbur toget the beds ready. The boy, greatly pleased with himself that he knewhow to do this without being told, picked up his ax and started for thenearest balsam. But he found himself in somewhat of a difficulty. Thewhite fir grew to a much larger tree than the Balm-of-Gilead he hadknown in the East, and the lower branches were tough. So he chopped downa young tree near, scarcely more than a sapling.
A moment later he heard the Ranger call to him.
"How many trees of that size do you reckon you'll want?" he asked.
"Oh, they're only just saplings," the boy replied, "five or six ought todo."
"They'll make five or six fine trees some day, won't they?" queried theold woodsman.
"Yes, Rifle-Eye, they will," answered the boy, flushing at his lack ofthoughtfulness. "I'd better take only one, and that a little bigger,hadn't I?"
"An' one that's crooked. Always take a tree that isn
't goin' to makegood timber when you're not cuttin' for timber."
Wilbur accordingly felled a small white fir near by, having had hisfirst practical lesson of forest economy on his own forest, stripped thetree of its fans or flattest branches and laid them on the ground. Athickness of about six inches, he found, was enough to make the bedswonderfully springy and comfortable.
In the meantime he found that Rifle-Eye was getting a fireplace ready,using for the purpose some flat stones which lay conveniently near by.Wilbur, stepping over a tiny rivulet which ran into the creek, noted acouple of stones apparently just suited for the making of a roughfireplace and brought them along. The Ranger looked at them.
"What kind o' stone do you call that?" he asked.
"Granite," said Wilbur immediately.
"An' you took them out o' the water?"
"Yes," answered the boy.
"An' what happens when you build a fire between granite stones?"
"I don't know, Rifle-Eye. What does?"
"They explode sometimes, leastways, when they're wet inside. Don'tforget that," he added as he put the stones aside. "Now," he continued,"go down to the spring an' fill this pot with water, an' I'll have afire goin' an' some grub sizzlin' by the time you get back. The springis about two hundred feet downstream and about twenty feet above thewater. You can't miss it."
Wilbur took the aluminum pot and started for the spring. He had not gonehalf the distance when he noted a stout crotched stick such as he hadbeen used to getting when he camped out in the middle West for thepurpose of hanging the cooking utensils on over the fire. So he pickedit up and carried it along with him. Presently the gurgling of watertold him that he was nearing the spring, and a moment later he saw theclearing through the trees. But, suddenly, a low snarling met his ears,and he halted dead at the edge of the clearing.
There, before him, on the ground immediately beside the spring, croucheda large wild-cat, the hairy tips of her ears twitching nervously. Underher claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cathad just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At firstWilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods withher prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken hisapproach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was preciselywhat the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had beencaught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above theground, and for the moment the cat could not budge it.
Wilbur was utterly at a loss to know what to do. He had been told thatwild-cats would never attack any one unless they had been provoked tofight, and he found himself very unwilling to provoke this particularspecimen. The cat stood still, her eyes narrowed to mere slits, the earsslightly moving, and the tip of the tail flicking from side to side inquick, angry jerks. There was menace in every line of the wild-cat'spose.
The boy had his revolver with him, but while he had occasionally fired asix-shooter, he was by no means a crack shot, and he realized that if hefired at and only wounded the creature he would unquestionably beattacked. And there was a lithe suppleness in the manner that themovement of the muscles rippled over the skin that was alarminglysuggestive of ferocity. Wilbur did not like the looks of it at all. Onthe other hand, he had not the slightest intention of going back to thecamp without water. He had come for water, and he would carry waterback, he thought to himself, if a regiment of bob-cats was in the way.
The old fable that a wild beast cannot stand the gaze of the human eyerecurred to Wilbur's remembrance, and he stood at the edge of theclearing regarding the cat fixedly. But the snarls only grew the louder.Wilbur was frightened, and he knew it, and what was more, he felt thecat knew it with that intuition the wild animals have for recognizingdanger or the absence of danger. She made another effort to drag awaythe rabbit, but failing in that, with an angry yowl, with quick jerksand rending of her powerful jaws began to try to force the rabbit freefrom the entangling root, which done, she could carry it into the forestto devour at leisure. The ease with which those claws and teeth rentasunder the yielding flesh was an instructive sight for Wilbur, but thefact that the wild-cat should dare to go on striving to free her preyinstead of slinking away in fright made the boy angry. Besides, he hadcome for that water.
Wilbur decided to advance into the clearing anyway, and then, if thecreature did not stir, he would be so near that he couldn't miss herwith the revolver. As he grew angrier his fear began to leave him. Hetook the pot in his left hand, putting the long stick under his arm,and, drawing his six-shooter, advanced on the cat. He came forwardslowly, but without hesitation. At his second step forward the wild-catraised her head, but instead of springing at him, as Wilbur half feared,she retreated into the woods, leaving her prey, snarling as she went.Wilbur went boldly forward to the spring, and, thinking that he wouldsee no more of the cat, put away his revolver.
Having secured the water, and as he turned to go, however, the boy felta sudden impulse to look up. He had not heard a sound, and yet, on a lowbranch a few feet above his head, crouched the wild-cat, her eyesglaring yellow in the waning light. Once again he felt the temptation toshoot her, but resisted it, through his fear of only wounding thecreature and thus bringing her full fury upon him.
But it occurred to Wilbur that it was not unlikely that he might have tocome back to the spring a second time for more water, and he did notwish to risk another encounter. He thought to himself that if he didreturn and interrupted the wild-cat a second time he would not escape aseasily as he had on this occasion, and consequently he tried to devise ameans to prevent such meeting. He figured that if he picked up therabbit and threw it far into the woods the cat would follow and the pathto the spring would be open. Forgetting for the moment that he could notexpect the angry creature in the tree to divine the honesty of hisintentions, he stooped down and grasped the rabbit by the leg to throwit into the forest. As he did so, the wild-cat, thinking herself aboutto be deprived of her prey, sprang at him.
With one hand holding the pot of water, which, boy-like, he did not wantto spill, and the other grasping the rabbit, Wilbur was terriblyhandicapped. But, by the greatest good fortune, as he stooped, thecrotch of the stick that he was carrying caught the wild-cat under thebody as she launched herself at him from the tree. The stick wasknocked out of the boy's grasp, but it also turned the cat aside, andshe half fell, landing on Wilbur's outstretched leg, instead of on hisneck, which was the objective point in her spring. As her claws rippedinto the soft flesh of his thigh, Wilbur released his hold of therabbit, drew his revolver, and fired full at the creature hanging on hisleg.
Almost instantaneously with the shot, however, one of her foreclaws shotout and caught the back of his right hand, making a long but superficialgash from the wrist to the knuckles. At the same time, too, one of herhind claws struck down, opening the calf of the leg and making the boysick for a moment. His right hand was bleeding vigorously and paining agood deal, but his finger was still on the trigger and Wilbur firedagain. A moment later, the Ranger came running into the clearing. Butbefore he reached the boy's side the cat had fallen limply to theground. The second shot had gone clear through her skull, and, beingfired at point-blank distance, had almost blown her head off.
The old Ranger, without wasting time in words, quickly examined theboy's injuries and found them slight, although they were bleedingprofusely. Wilbur reached out the pot full of water from the spring.
"Here's the water, Rifle-Eye," he said a little quaveringly; "I hardlyspilled a drop."
The old woodsman took the vessel without a word. Then he looked down atthe cat.
"Just as well for you," he said, "that it wasn't a true lynx. But howdid she get at your leg? Did you walk on her, or kick her, just forfun?"
Wilbur, laughing a little nervously from the reaction of the excitement,described how it was that the wild-cat had landed on his leg instead ofon his neck, and the old hunter nodded.
"It's a mighty lucky thing for you," he said, "that stick was there,b
ecause there's a heap o' places around the neck where a clawin' ain'thealthy. But these scratches of yours won't take long to heal. Where youwere a fool," he continued, "was in touchin' the rabbit at all. It'sjust as I told you. When you went quietly forward, you say, the bob-catgot out of your road all right. Of course, that's what she ought to do.And if you had filled the pot with water an' come away that's allthere'd have been to it. But jest as soon as you begin ter get mixed upin the prey any varmint's killed, you've got ter begin considerin' thechances o' joinin' the select company o' victims."
"But I wanted her out of the way for next time," said Wilbur.
"She'd have got out of your way so quick you couldn't see her go," saidthe hunter, "if you'd given her a chance. Next time, leave a varmint'sdinner alone."
"Next time, I will," the boy declared.
"I guess now," continued the old hunter, "you'd better come back to campan' we'll see what we c'n do to improve them delicate attentions you'vereceived. An' don't be quite the same kind of an idiot again."
"Well," said Wilbur, "I got the water from the spring, anyhow."
PATROLLING A COYOTE FENCE.
The old Ranger and his hound safeguarding the grazing interests of theforest.
_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
REDUCING THE WOLF SUPPLY.]
REDUCING THE WOLF SUPPLY.
Sport that is worth while, freeing the National Forests from beasts ofprey.
_Photographs by U. S. Forest Service._]
Boy With the U. S. Foresters Page 5
