Part 8 (2/2)
The big hawk was accustomed to seeing every quarry he stooped at cower paralysed with terror or scurry for shelter in wild panic. But, to his surprise, this infatuated bird on the stump stood awaiting him, with wings half lifted, neck feathers raised in a defiant ruff, and one eye c.o.c.ked upwards warily. He was so surprised, in fact, that at a distance of some dozen or fifteen feet he wavered and paused in his downward rush. But it was surprise only, fear having small place in his wild, marauding heart. In the next second he swooped again and struck downwards at his quarry with savage, steel-hard talons.
He struck but empty air. At exactly the right fraction of the instant the c.o.c.k had leapt upwards on his powerful wings, lightly as a thistle-seed, but swift as if shot from a catapult. He pa.s.sed straight over his terrible a.s.sailant's back. In pa.s.sing he struck downwards with his spurs, which were nearly three inches long, straight, and tapered almost to a needle-point. One of these deadly weapons found its mark, as luck would have it, fair in the joint of the hawk's shoulder, putting the wing clean out of action.
The marauder turned completely over and fell in a wild flutter to the ground, the c.o.c.k, at the same time, alighting gracefully six or eight feet away and wheeling like a flash to meet a second attack. The hawk, recovering with splendid nerve from the amazing shock of his overthrow, braced himself upright on his tail by the aid of the one sound wing--the other wing trailing helplessly--and faced his strange adversary with open beak and one clutching talon uplifted.
The c.o.c.k, fighting after the manner of his kind, rushed in to within a couple of feet of his foe and there paused, balanced for the next stroke or parry, legs slightly apart, wings lightly raised, neck feathers ruffed straight out, beak lowered and presented like a rapier point.
Seeing that his opponent made no demonstration, but simply waited, watching him with eyes as hard and bright and dauntless as his own, he tried to provoke him to a second attack. With scornful insolence he dropped his guard and pecked at a twig or a gra.s.s blade, jerking the unconsidered morsel aside and presenting his point again with lightning swiftness.
The insult, however, was lost upon the hawk, who had no knowledge of the c.o.c.k's duelling code. He simply waited, motionless as the stump beside him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels.]
The c.o.c.k, perceiving that taunt and insolence were wasted, now began to circle warily toward the left, as if to take his opponent in the flank.
The hawk at once s.h.i.+fted front to face him. But this was the side of his disabled wing. The sprawling member would not move, would not get out of the way. In the effort to manage it, he partly lost his precarious balance. The c.o.c.k saw his advantage instantly. He dashed in like a feathered and flaming thunderbolt, leaping upwards and striking downwards with his destroying heels. The hawk was hurled over backwards, with one spur through his throat, the other through his lungs. As he fell he dragged his conqueror down with him, and one convulsive but blindly-clutching talon ripped away a strip of flesh and feathers from the victor's thigh. There was a moment's flapping, a few delicate red feathers floated off upon the morning air, then the hawk lay quite still, and the red c.o.c.k, stepping haughtily off the body of his foe, crowed long and shrill, three times, as if challenging any other champions of the wilderness to come and dare a like fate.
For a few minutes he stood waiting and listening for an answer to his challenge. As no answer came, he turned, without deigning to glance at his slain foe, and stalked off, stepping daintily, up the old wood-road and into the depths of the forest. To the raw, red gash in his thigh he paid no heed whatever.
Having no inkling of the fact that the wilderness, silent and deserted though it seemed, was full of hostile eyes and unknown perils, he took no care at all for the secrecy of his going. Indeed, had he striven for concealment, his brilliant colouring, so out of key with the forest gloom, would have made it almost impossible. Nevertheless, his keenness of sight and hearing, his practised and unsleeping vigilance as protector of his flock, stood him in good stead, and made up for his lack of wilderness lore. It was with an intense interest and curiosity, rather than with any apprehension, that his bold eyes questioned everything on either side of his path through the dark spruce woods.
Sometimes he would stop to peck the bright vermilion bunches of the pigeon-berry, which here and there starred the hillocks beside the road.
But no matter how interesting he found the novel and delicious fare, his vigilance never relaxed. It was, indeed, almost automatic. The idea lurking in his subconscious processes was probably that he might at any moment be seen by some doughty rival of his own kind, and challenged to the great game of mortal combat. But whatever the object of his watchfulness, it served him as well against the unknown as it could have done against expected foes.
Presently he came to a spot where an old, half-rotted stump had been torn apart by a bear hunting for wood-ants. The raw earth about the up-torn roots tempted the wanderer to scratch for grubs. Finding a fat white morsel, much too dainty to be devoured alone, he stood over it and began to call _kt-kt-kt_, _kt-kt-kt_, _kt-kt-kt_ in his most alluring tones, hoping that some coy young hen would come stealing out of the underbrush in response to his gallant invitation. There was no such response; but as he peered about hopefully, he caught sight of a sinister, reddish-yellow shape creeping towards him behind the shelter of a withe-wood bush. He gulped down the fat grub, and stood warily eyeing the approach of this new foe.
It looked to him like a sharp-nosed, bushy-tailed yellow dog--a very savage and active one. He was not afraid, but he knew himself no match for a thoroughly ferocious dog of that size. This one, it was clear, had evil designs upon him. He half crouched, with wings loosed and every muscle tense for the spring.
The next instant the fox pounced at him, darting through the green edges of the withe-wood bush with most disconcerting suddenness. The c.o.c.k sprang into the air, but only just in time, for the fox, leaping up nimbly at him with snapping jaws, captured a mouthful of glossy tail feathers. The c.o.c.k alighted on a branch overhead, some seven or eight feet from the ground, whipped around, stretched his neck downwards, and eyed his a.s.sailant with a gla.s.sy stare. ”_Kr-rr-rr-eee?_” he murmured softly, as if in sarcastic interrogation. The fox, exasperated at his failure, and hating, above all beasts, to be made a fool of, glanced around to see if there were any spectators. Then, with an air of elaborate indifference, he pawed a feather from the corner of his mouth and trotted away as if he had just remembered something.
He had not gone above thirty yards or so, when the c.o.c.k flew down again to the exact spot where he had been scratching. He pretended to pick up another grub, all the time keeping an eye on the retiring foe. He crowed with studied insolence; but the fox, although that long and shrill defiance must have seemed a startling novelty, gave no sign of having heard it. The c.o.c.k crowed again, with the same lack of result. He kept on crowing until the fox was out of sight. Then he returned coolly to his scratching. When he had satisfied his appet.i.te for fat white grubs, he flew up again to his safe perch and fell to pruning his feathers.
Five minutes later the fox reappeared, creeping up with infinite stealth from quite another direction. The c.o.c.k, however, detected his approach at once, and proclaimed the fact with another mocking crow. Disgusted and abashed, the fox turned in his tracks and crept away to stalk some less sophisticated quarry.
The wanderer, for all his fearlessness, was wise. He suspected that the vicious yellow dog with the bushy tail might return yet again to the charge. For a time, therefore, he sat on his perch, digesting his meal and studying with keen, inquisitive eyes his strange surroundings.
After ten minutes or so of stillness and emptiness, the forest began to come alive. He saw a pair of black-and-white woodp.e.c.k.e.rs running up and down the trunk of a half-dead tree, and listened with tense interest to their loud rat-tat-tattings. He watched the shy wood-mice come out from their snug holes under the tree-roots, and play about with timorous gaiety and light rustlings among the dead leaves. He scrutinised with appraising care a big brown rabbit which came bounding in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on down the tote-road and sat up on his hindquarters near the stump, staring about with its mild, bulging eyes, and waving its long ears this way and that, to question every minutest wilderness sound; and he decided that the rabbit, for all its bulk and apparent vigour of limb, would not be a dangerous opponent. In fact, he thought of hopping down from his perch and putting the big innocent to flight, just to compensate himself for having had to flee from the fox.
But while he was meditating this venture, the rabbit went suddenly leaping off at a tremendous pace, evidently in great alarm. A few seconds later a slim little light-brownish creature, with short legs, long, sinuous body, short, triangular head, and cruel eyes that glowed like fire, came into view, following hard upon the rabbit's trail. It was nothing like half the rabbit's size, but the interested watcher on the branch overhead understood at once the rabbit's terror. He had never seen a weasel before, but he knew that the sinuous little beast with the eyes of death would be as dangerous almost as the fox. He noted that here was another enemy to look out for--to be avoided, if possible, to be fought with the utmost wariness if fighting should be forced upon him.
Not long after the weasel had vanished, the c.o.c.k grew tired of waiting, and restless to renew the quest for the flock on which his dreams were set. He started by flying from tree to tree, still keeping along the course of the tote-road. But after he had covered perhaps a half-mile in this laborious fas.h.i.+on, he gave it up and hopped down again into the road. Here he went now with new caution, but with the same old arrogance of eye and bearing. He went quickly, however, for the gloom of the spruce wood had grown oppressive to him, and he wanted open fields and the unrestricted sun.
He had not gone far when he caught sight of a curious-looking animal advancing slowly down the path to meet him. It was nearly as big as the rabbit, but low on the legs; and instead of leaping along, it crawled with a certain heavy deliberation. Its colour was a dingy, greyish black-and-white, and its short black head was crowned with what looked like a heavy iron-grey pompadour brushed well back. The c.o.c.k stood still, eyeing its approach suspiciously. It did not look capable of any very swift demonstration, but he was on his guard.
When it had come within three or four yards of him, he said ”_Kr-rr-rr-eee!_” sharply, just to see what it would do, at the same time lowering his snaky head and ruffing out his neck feathers in challenge. The stranger seemed then to notice him for the first time, and instantly, to the c.o.c.k's vast surprise, it enlarged itself to fully twice its previous size. Its fur, which was now seen to be quills rather than fur, stood up straight on end all over its head and body, and the quills were two or three inches in length. At this amazing spectacle the c.o.c.k involuntarily backed away several paces. The stranger came straight on, however, without hastening his deliberate steps one jot. The c.o.c.k waited, maintaining his att.i.tude of challenge, till not more than three or four feet separated him from the incomprehensible apparition. Then he sprang lightly over it and turned in a flash, expecting the stranger to turn also and again confront him. The stranger, however, did nothing of the kind, but simply continued stolidly on his way, not even troubling to look round. Such stolidity was more than the c.o.c.k could understand, having never encountered a porcupine before. He stared after it for some moments. Then he crowed scornfully, turned about, and resumed his lonely quest.
A little further on, to his great delight, he came out into a small clearing with a log cabin in the centre of it. A house! It was a.s.sociated in his mind with an admiring, devoted flock of hens, and rivals to be ignominiously routed, and harmless necessary humans whose business it was to supply unlimited food. He rushed forward eagerly, careless as to whether he should encounter love or war.
Alas, the cabin was deserted! Even to his inexperienced eye it was long deserted. The door hung on one hinge, half open. The one small window had no gla.s.s in it. Untrodden weeds grew among the rotting chips up to and across the threshold. The roof--a rough affair of poles and bark--sagged in the middle, just ready to fall in at the smallest provocation. A red squirrel, his tail carried jauntily over his back, sat on the topmost peak of it and shrilled high derision at the wanderer as he approached.
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