Kitabı oku: «Neighbors Unknown», sayfa 7

A TORPEDO IN FEATHERS

The blue kingfisher, flying over the still surface of the lake, and peering downward curiously as he flew, saw into its depths as if they had been clear glass. What he hoped to see was some small fish – chub, or shiner, or yellow perch, or trout, basking incautiously near the surface. What he saw was a sinister dark shape, elongated but massive, darting in a straight line through the transparent amber, some three or four feet below the surface. Knowing well enough what that meant – no fish so foolish as to linger in such dread neighborhood – the kingfisher flew on indignantly, with a loud clattering laugh like a rattle. He would do his fishing, according to his usual custom, in the shallower waters along shore, where the great black loon was less at home.

Darting straight ahead for an amazing distance, like a well-aimed torpedo, the loon came to a point where the lake-bottom slanted upward swiftly toward a bushy islet, over a floor of yellow sand that glowed in the sun. Here he just failed to transfix, with his powerful dagger of a bill, a big lake trout that hung, lazily waving its scarlet fins, beside a rock. The trout’s golden-rimmed eyes detected the peril in time – just in time – and with a desperate screw-like thrust of his powerful tail, he shot aside and plunged into the shadowy deeps. The heavy swirl of his going disturbed an eight-inch chub, which chanced at the moment to be groping for larvæ in a muddy pocket beneath the rock. Incautiously it sailed forth to see what was happening. Before it had time to see anything, fate struck it. Caught in the vice of two iron mandibles, it was carried quivering to the surface.

All power of escape crushed out of it by that saw-toothed grip, the victim might safely have been dropped and devoured at leisure. But the great loon was too hungry for leisure. Moreover, he was an expert and he took no risks. With a jerk he threw the fish into the air, caught it as it fell head first, and gulped it down. For a moment or two he floated motionless, his small, fierce and peculiarly piercing eyes warily scrutinizing the lake in all directions. Then, lifting his black head, which gleamed in the sun with green, purple, and sapphire iridescence, he gave vent to a strange wild cry like a peal of bitter laughter. The cry echoed hollowly from the desolate shores of the lake. A moment or two later it was answered, in the same hollow and disconcerting tones, and from behind the islet his mate came swimming to meet him.

For a few minutes the two great birds swam slowly around each other, uttering several times their weird cry. As they floated at their ease, unalarmed, they sat high in the water, showing something of the clean pearly whiteness of their breasts and under parts. Their sturdy, trimly modelled bodies were about three feet in length, from the tips of their straight and formidable green beaks to the ends of their short stiff tails. Their heads, as we have seen, were of an intense and iridescent black, their necks encircled by collars of black and white, their backs, shoulders, and wings dull black, with white spots and bars. Their feet, very large, broadly webbed, and set extraordinarily far back, almost like those of a penguin, glimmered black as they fanned back and forth in the clear amber water.

Suddenly some movement among the bushes along the near shore, perhaps two hundred yards away, caught their watchful eyes. In an instant, by some mysterious process, they had sunk their bodies completely below the surface, leaving only their snaky heads and necks exposed to view. This peculiar submerged position they held, it seemed, without difficulty. But whatever it was that alarmed them, it was not repeated; and after perhaps five minutes of cautious watchfulness, they slowly emerged and floated on the surface. Presently the female swam back again behind the islet, laboriously scrambled out upon the shore, waddled to her nest, and settled herself once more to the task of brooding her two big gray-green, brown-blotched eggs. It was the first week in June, and the eggs were near hatching.

The pair of loons were restless and annoyed. Their lake, set in a lonely valley, which was drained by a branch of the Upper Quah-Davic, had seemed to them the perfection of solitude and remoteness. For three years now they had been coming to it every spring with the first of the northern flight. But this spring their solitude had been invaded. A pioneer, a squatter, with a buxom wife and several noisy children, had come and built a cabin on the shore of the lake. To be sure, the lake was large enough to overlook and forget such a small invasion, but for the loons it was a great matter. That cabin, those voices, and laughter, and axe-strokes, and sometimes gun-shots, though almost a mile away from their nesting-place, were a detestable and unpardonable intrusion.

The loon was just about to resume his fishing – a business which, on account of his phenomenal appetite, took up most of his time – when once more a movement in the bushes caught his vigilant eye. At the same instant a flash of white fire jetted through the leafy screen, a vicious report rang out, and a shower of shot cut the water into spurting streaks all about him. But he was not there. Inconceivably swift, he had dived at the flash itself. The lead that would have riddled him struck the empty swirl where he had vanished. A lanky youth with a gun stepped out from behind the bushes, stared in sulky disappointment, and presently strolled off down the shore to look for less elusive game.

The shattered calm of the lake surface had time to rebuild itself before the loon reappeared. A hundred yards away from the spot where he had dived, his head thrust itself above the water, a tiny black speck on the silvery sheen. It disappeared again instantly. When it once more came to the surface, it was so far out from shore that its owner felt safe. After a few moments devoted to inspection of the hunter’s retreating form, the loon arose completely and sent a long derisive peal of his wild laughter echoing down the lake. The lanky youth turned and shook his fist at him, as if threatening to settle the score at a later day.

The loon had come by this time to a part of the lake where the depth was not more than six or seven feet, and the bottom was of rich firm mud, covered with rank growths. Here and there a solitary lily-plant, a stray from the creamy-blossomed, nectar-breathing colony over in the near-by cove, lifted to the surface its long pipe-like stems and flat sliding disks of leaves. It was a favorite resort, this, of almost every kind of fish that inhabited the lake, except, of course, of the minnows and other little fry, who would have been promptly made to serve as food for their bigger kinsmen had they ventured into so fatal a neighborhood.

Floating tranquilly, the loon caught sight of the silvery sides of a fat chub, balancing just above the bottom, beside one of the slender pipes of lily-stalk. The fish was lazily opening and closing its crimson gills, indifferent and with a well-fed air. It hung at a depth of perhaps six feet, and at a distance of perhaps sixteen or twenty. So smoothly as scarcely to leave a swirl on the surface, the loon dived straight down, then darted for the fish at a terrific pace. His powerful feet, folding up and opening out at each lightning-swift stroke, propelled him like a torpedo just shot from tube, and tiny bubbles, formed by the air caught under his feathers, flicked upward along his course.

The chub caught sight of this shape of doom rushing upon him through the golden tremor of the water. He shot off in a panic, seeking some deep crevice or some weed-thicket dense enough to hide him. But the loon was almost at his tail. There was no crevice to be found, and the weed thickets were too sparse and open to conceal him. This way and that he darted, doubling and twisting frantically around every stalk or stone. But in spite of his bulk, the loon followed each turn with the agility of an eel. The loosed silt boiled up in wreaths behind his violent passage, and the weeds swayed in the wake of the thrusting webs. In less than a minute the chase – the turmoil of which drove every other fish, large or small, in terror from the feeding-ground – came suddenly to an end. Rising abruptly with the fish gripped in his great beak, the loon burst out upon the surface, sending shoreward a succession of circling ripples. Without ceremony he gulped his meal. Then, swimming rather low in the water, and with head thrust out before him, he hurried to his nesting-place on the islet, as if he thought he had been too long away from his domestic duties.

The spot on the islet where the loons had their nest was almost unconcealed. It was in a grassy cup within four or five feet of the water’s edge, and sheltered only by a thin screen of bushes on the landward side. Toward the sky it was quite open. There had seemed to be little need of concealment before the intruder, man, came to the lake. The islet was too far from the main shore to be in danger from the visits of foxes or bears, fishers or raccoons. And as for the sky – well, the loon had little fear of anything that flew. Because of this lack of apprehension from skyward, even his coloring was not very protective, his glossy black, barred and mottled with pure white, being fairly conspicuous against the grays, and greens, and browns which surrounded the nest. Neither he nor his mate had any particular objection to being seen by any marauder of the air. Even the murderous goshawk, or the smaller but even more fearless duck-hawk, would know better than to swoop down upon the uplifted dagger of a nesting loon. And as for the eagle, though doubtless strong enough to master such an antagonist in the end, he is wise enough to know that the loon’s punishing beak and bulldog courage in defence of the nest would make the victory an expensive and painful one.

But there was one enemy besides man whom the loons had cause to fear, even on their secluded islet. They hated the mink with a well-founded hate. He could easily swim out to discover and rob their nest; and if he should find it for a moment unguarded, his agility would enable him to keep well clear of their avenging wrath. On the nest neither male nor female feared to meet the mink’s attack, their lithe necks and unerring quickness of thrust being sufficient defence even against so formidable a robber. But their movements on land – an awkward, flopping series of waddles – were so slow that, in the case of a mink arriving, the precious eggs would be safe only while actually covered. A big mink had been seen that very morning, prowling down the opposite shore, and both birds were uneasy. They seemed now to be taking counsel upon that or some other equally important matter.

For the next few days, however, the life of the loons was tranquil, with good fishing to content their appetites and no untoward event to make them anxious. Then came a day when the patient mother on her nest could not conceal her happiness and her excitement, when the male, forgetful of meals, stood for hours at a time in interested expectancy beside the nest. The strong chicks within the eggs were beginning to stir and chip the shell. It was not the day that the big mink should have chosen for his expedition to the islet.

For several weeks the mink had been on the point of swimming out to explore that little patch of rocks and grass and bushes, sentinelled by one dark fir-tree. Such a secluded spot, out of reach of most forest prowlers, might well afford something special in the way of good hunting. Hitherto one thing or another had always diverted him from his purpose, and he had gone off on another trail. But to-day nothing intervened. His long, lithe, black body curving like a snake’s, he ran down the bank, lifted his triangular vicious-looking head for a survey of the lake, and plunged into the water with a low splash.

Now, the vision of the mink, though sharp enough at close quarters, has nothing like the power and penetration of the loon’s. The mink could see the islet, the rocks, the bushes, the sentinel fir-tree, but he could not make out the figure of the loon standing beside the nest. The loon, on the other hand, could see him with absolute distinctness, as if not more than fifty feet away.

As has been already noted, the day was not well chosen for the mink’s trip to the islet. The loon stiffened himself with anger, and his round bright eyes hardened implacably. The mother settled down closer over the stirring eggs, and turned her head to stare malevolently at the long pointed trail which the swimmer’s head was drawing on the lake surface. Her mate stood for some seconds as motionless as a charred stump. Then, slipping noiselessly down the bank, he glided into the water and dived from sight.

The lake was deep at this point, the main channel of the stream – upon which the lake was threaded like a great oval bead on a slender string – running between the islet and the mainland. The loon plunged nearly to the bottom, that he might run no risk of being detected by the enemy. More than ever like a torpedo, as he pierced the brown depths, he darted forward to the attack. Two or three great lake trout, seeing the approach of the black rushing shape, made way in terror and hid in the deepest weed-patch they could find. But the loon was not thinking of fish. The most tempting tit-bit in the lake at that moment might have brushed against his feathers with impunity.

At last, still far ahead of him, he saw the enemy’s approach. As he looked upward through the water, the under surface was like a radiant but half transparent mirror, on which the tiniest floating object, even a fly or a wild-cherry petal, stood out with amazing distinctness. The dark body of the swimming mink was large and black and menacing against its setting of silver, and the ripples spread away from his chin, ever widening, till they faded on the shore behind him. The loon kept straight on till the mink was almost above him, then he turned and shot upward.

Thinking, doubtless, of some wild duck’s nest, well filled with large green eggs, which he would devour at his ease after sucking the blood of the brooding mother, the mink swam on steadily toward the islet. The worn gray rocks and fringing grass grew nearer, and the details began to separate themselves to his fierce little eyes. Presently he made out the black shape of the female loon sitting on her nest and eying him. That promised something interesting. The blood leaped in his veins, and he raced forward at redoubled speed, for the mink goes into his frays with a rampant blood-lust that makes him always formidable, even to creatures of twice his weight.

It was just at this moment that his alert senses took note of a strange vague heaving in the water beneath him, a sort of dull and broad vibration. Swiftly he ducked his head, to see if the whole lake-bottom was rising up at him. But he had no time to see anything. It was as if a red-hot iron was jabbed straight upward through the tender back part of his throat, and a swarm of stars exploded in his brain. Then he knew nothing more. The loon’s steel-like bill had pierced to and penetrated the base of the skull, and with one convulsive kick, the robber’s body straightened itself out upon the water. Shaking his head like an angry terrier, he wrenched his bill free and hurried back to reassure his mate, leaving the body of the mink to sink languidly to the bottom. Here, among the weeds, it was presently discovered by the eels and crawfish, faithful scavengers, who saw to it that there should be nothing left to pollute the sweet lake-waters.

On the following day the two awkward, dingy-hued, downy chicks were hatched, and thenceforth the parents were kept busy supplying their extremely healthy appetites. The havoc wrought among the finny hordes – the trout and “togue”¹ and chub, the red-fins, shiners, and minnows – was enormous. The loon chicks, enterprising and industrious, speedily learned to help their parents by hunting the small fry in the sunlit shallows along shore.

But the loon family were not the only ardent fishermen on those waters. The new-comers, the man family, they too liked fish, and had no mean skill in catching them. In fact, their methods were stupidly and slaughterously destructive, well calculated to quite draw out the lake in two or three seasons. They set a big purse-seine right across the channel, and, worst of all, they dragged the deep dark pools, wherein, now that the waters were growing warmer under the mid-June sun, the biggest trout and “togue” were wont to gather for coolness. Their own thought was to get their larder well stocked with salted fish against the coming winter. Future winters might look out for themselves.

For some time the great loon, though more enterprising and wide-ranging than his prudent mate, had kept careful distance from the nets and net-stakes, as from all the other visible manifestations of man. But at last he grew accustomed to the tall immovable stakes in the channel which supported the purse-seine. He concluded that they were harmless, or even impotent, and decided to investigate them.

As he approached, the dim meshes of the net, shimmering vaguely in the bright water, excited his suspicions. He sheered off warily and swam around the seine at a prudent distance. At last he found the opening. There seemed to be no danger anywhere in sight, so, after some hesitation, he sailed in. The ordered curving rows of the stakes, the top line of the net, beaded with a few floats, here and there rising above the water – it was all very curious, but it did not seem in any way hostile. He eyed it scornfully. For what was neither dangerous nor useful he had a highly practical contempt. Having satisfied his curiosity, and allayed a certain uneasiness with which he had always regarded the great set-net, he turned to swim out again. But at this moment he chanced to look down.

The sight that met his eyes was one to stir the blood of any fisherman. He was just over the “purse” – that fatal chamber whence so few who enter it ever find the exit. The narrow space was crowded with every kind of fish that frequented the lake, except for the slim eels and the small fry who could swim through the meshes. It was the chance of a loon’s lifetime. Flashing downward, he darted this way and that ecstatically among the frantic prisoners, transfixing half a dozen in succession, to make sure of them, before he seized a big trout for his immediate meal. Gripping the victim savagely in his bill, he slanted toward the surface, and plunged into a slack bight of the net.

Luckily for him, he was within a foot of the air before he struck the deceitful meshes. Carried on by the impetus of his rush, he bore the net upward with him, and emerged into the full sun. In the shock of his surprise he dropped the fish, and at the same time gulped his lungs full of fresh air. For perhaps half a minute, he thrust and flapped and tore furiously, expecting to break through the elusive obstacle, which yielded so freely that he could get no hold upon it, yet always thrust him back with a suave but inexorable persistence. At length, realizing himself foiled in this direction, he sank downward like a stone, thinking to back out of the struggle and rise somewhere else. But, to his horror, the bight of the net came down with him, refusing to be left. In his struggles he had completely enmeshed himself.

And now, probably for the very first time in a not uneventful life, the great loon lost his head. He began to fight blindly, overwhelmed by panic terror. Plunging, kicking, beating with half-fettered wings, striking with his beak in a semi-paralyzed fashion because he had not room to stretch his neck to its full length, he was soon utterly exhausted. Moreover, he was more than half drowned. At last, a dimness coming over the golden amber light, he gave up in despair. With a feeble despairing stroke of his webbed feet, he strove to get back to the surface. Happily for him, the net in this direction was not relentless. It yielded without too much resistance, and the hopelessly entangled prisoner came to the top. Lying there in the meshes, he could at least draw breath.

When, a little later in the day, he saw a boat approaching up the lake with two of the dreaded man creatures in it, he gave one final mighty struggle, which lashed the water into foam and sent the imprisoned fish into fresh paroxysms; and then, with the stoicism which some of the wild creatures can display in the moment of supreme and hopeless peril, he lay quite still, eying the foe defiantly.

One of the beings in the boat was that lanky youth whose attempt to shoot the loon had been such a conspicuous failure. The other was the lanky youth’s father, the pioneer himself. At the sight of the trussed-up captive, the youth shouted exultantly —

“It’s that durn loon what’s eatin’ all the fish in the lake! I’ll fix his fishin’!” and, lifting his oar from the thole-pins, he raised it to strike the helpless bird.

“Don’t be sich a durn fool, Zeb!” interrupted the father. “Ye’ll get more money for that bird alive, down to Fredericton, than all the fish in the net’s worth. A loon like that ain’t common. He’s a beauty!”

The youth dropped his oar and leaned over to snatch up the prize. But he jumped back with alacrity as his father snapped: “Look out!”

“What for?” he demanded, rather sheepishly.

“Why,” replied the older man, “he’ll stick you like a pig with that knife beak of his’n, if ye don’t look sharp! Reach me yer jacket. We’ll wrap up his head till we kin get him clear o’ the net.”

The youth obeyed. Helplessly swathed in the heavy homespun jacket, whose strong man smell enraged and daunted him, the great bird was disentangled from the net and lifted into the boat. Laughingly the father passed the bundle along the gunwale to his son.

But swathing a powerful bird in a jacket is a more or less inexact undertaking, as many have found in experimenting with wounded hawks and eagles. By some lucky wriggle the loon got his head free. Instantly, with all the force of his powerful neck-muscles, he drove his beak half-way through the fleshy part of his old enemy’s arm. With a startled yell the lad dropped him. He bounded from the gunwale and rolled into the water. The man snatched at him and caught a flopping sleeve of the jacket. The jacket promptly and neatly unrolled, and the loon, diving deep, was out of sight in an eye-wink, leaving his would-be jailers to express themselves according to their mood. When he came to the surface for breath, he was a hundred yards away, and on the other side of the boat, and as he thrust little more than his beak and nostrils above water, he was not detected.

A few minutes more, and he was laughing derisively from the other side of the islet, swimming in safety with his mate and his two energetic chicks. Nevertheless, for all his triumph and the discomfiture of his foes, the grim experience had put him out of conceit with the lake. That same night, when the white moon rode high over the jagged spruce ridges, a hollow globe of enchantment, he led his little family straight up the river, mile after mile, till they reached another lake. It was a small lake, shut in by brooding hills, with iron shores, and few fish in its inhospitable waters, but it was remote from man and his works. So here the outraged bird was content to establish himself till the hour should return for migrants to fly south.