Allen Chaffee

“ Could they reach the Valley Farm, Fleet Foot asked herself with pounding heart?
It was hard going through the powdery snow, into which she sank dangerously every time she came to a drift too wide to leap. And the fawns were having an even harder time, the cold cutting into their lungs ’till it hurt.
At last, straight ahead, gleamed the dim lighted windows of the farmhouse. A few more bursts of speed would get them over the fence and into the pasture lot, and perhaps the wolves would stop at the boundary of man’s domain. But—could they make it? ”

“ Gray granite worn into fantastic shapes,—castles and giant tables,—dwarfed and twisted trees rooted in rock crevices, white waters roaring against the canyon wall like a storm-wind in the tree-tops, fallen trunks, patches of flaming fire-weed. This was the wilderness against which they must pit their wild-craft if they would eat.
By the time the sun slanted at five o’clock, Norris called a halt by the side of a moist green meadow where the burros would find browse, and all hands turning to and unpacking the kyacks, they hobbled the animals with a neat loop about their fore-legs. ”

“ Just now the nursery cave was occupied by four of the most cunning baby chipmunks that ever were,—helpless at this age, without teeth. When Mother Chipmunk washed them, she would stand on her hind legs and take one up on her arms so that she could smooth its fur with her tongue.
Now these helpless babies would starve to death, she told herself. She must find a way to escape, if her life depended on it. And she must find it quickly, or she could never travel back all those miles the Ranger was taking her. ”

“ AS winter approached, and Fuzzy wandered farther and farther afield, the bullfrogs wriggled deep into the mud to sleep the white months away, the trout he had so often caught sought the deepest water they could find, in the very bottom of the ice-covered lake, the birds flew further south, the chipmunks retired to the depths of their well-stocked burrows, the pine squirrels took to their hollow trees except when the sun shone warmest, and the mice crept so deep into the frozen ground that Fuzzy could not dig them out. ”

“ Their weird voices faded rapidly into the depths of the woods; for wolves travel fast on their round, furry feet, which spread out beneath them like round snow-shoes.
The Hired Man strode on down the Old Logging Road past the charred trunks which the forest fire had swept,—standing like white ghosts now in their snowy mantles,—and on nearly to Lone Lake. But never a sign of the gleaming eyes of the two remaining wolves could he see, though his ears shuddered at the weird howls that rang down the wind, and Lop Ear bristled and growled. ”

“ Pedro always used a spoon when he wasn’t fishing for pure sport. On this sunny stretch, so clear in the red glow of approaching sunset that the bottom was plainly visible, he could see the fat old patriarchs lazing the late afternoon away. But he was soon rousing them to find out what that little shining thing could be that darted so rapidly through their habitat,—that tiny bit of metallic white so unlike anything their jaded appetites had yet negotiated. ”

“ They sleep a good deal, but they do not go into an all-winter sleep, and when they wake, there in their caves away under-ground where the cold cannot reach them, they must eat.
Everywhere among the brush and fallen timber and along the rock ledges they searched for food to store away for winter. Racing briskly forth each morning, as soon as the sun began to slant warmingly through the fir trees, Chuck and Chipper vied with each other to see which could harvest the most nuts. And Fuzzy-Wuzz vied with both to see if he could catch them. ”

“ With a peek at castor oil and gasoline, they started, looping and curving straight to 15,000 feet, then Westward, away from the fire zone. Though the day was fair, the spiral of hot air rising above the flaming forest kept them pitching 100and lurching in a short chop that made Ted look green, and gave even Ace a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach.
The sea of snow-clad peaks slid by beneath them, the sun flashing from the granite slopes. Rising and falling, rising and falling in the rough, upper air, they felt as if they were in a swift elevator. ”

“ The tree-trunks crackled alarmingly with the frost, keeping her alert for enemies, and the wind tore savagely through the brush. Of a sudden Fleet Foot’s spine began to prickle! It was one of those mysterious things that she had never been able to account for. But it usually meant danger!
Half blindly, they had been making their way, hardly able to see in the green-black of the darkness. But they marked their path by the darker blackness of the clumps of spruce trees, which to their trained instinct pointed the way like a map. ”

“ Nickering in the angriest way imaginable, the two tiny things would 38come at each other with ears laid back, in what appeared for all the world like a head-butting contest. Around and around they would whirl in a spiral nebula, till one got a head start on a race for home and mother.
Each morning they awoke to the hack-hack-hack of the sawyers and the steady grating of the log saw, the twitter of the donkey engine and the volcanic remarks with which the bull-puncher was urging his team forward. The yellow sunshine sifted aslant through the giant trees, birds sang, and chipmunks chattered. ”

“ Every few hours the Ranger stopped to give him a panful of warm milk, and at night, when the mountain air turned chill, he snuggled the little bear under the blankets, though he never took him off the leash.
Finally one day they came to a neat log cabin beside a singing creek, where the pines and cedars made spots of shade on the forest floor. The next thing Fuzzy knew, he was inside the cabin, and two delighted man cubs, a boy and a girl, were dancing around him. This was so alarming that he crept inside the Ranger’s coat, crying, “Mu-uh! Mu-uh!” in a frightened whimper. ”

“ But it had been handed down from grand-sire to grand-son that once, when the snows were uncommonly deep, and half the wild folk starved and frozen, wolves had come down from the far North in search of prey.
There were three of the lean gray shapes, like collie dogs, yet so much larger and fiercer—large enough to attack even bigger game than Fleet Foot, the doe.
Should worst come to worst, she would have no more chance with even one such foe than a rabbit with a hound. It would all be a matter of which could run the faster. And she had to look out for the fawns! ”

“ Now Ted had been lost before. He knew the panic feeling, the sudden sense of utter and helpless isolation, the absurd fearfulness, almost the temporary insanity of it. His scalp prickled,—as did Ace’s,—and for a little while his wits seemed befogged. Then he remembered that bed-rock advice Long Lester had once given him. When you don’t know which way to go, sit down and don’t move one step for half an hour. ”

“ Yes, the one hope on the horizon lay at the Valley Farm, where the fear of man might keep the wolves from following.
And to the Farm Fleet Foot and the fawns now sped with their great, bounding strides that took whole drifts at a leap. Would their feet slip in the darkness, crippling them and leaving them helpless almost within sight of safety?
On and on they ran, and behind them through the forest crept the three gray shapes, slinking along like shadows with glowing coals for eyes. Every now and again their barking howl, long drawn out and fearful, tore the darkness. ”

“ The clumsy-looking ground squirrels developed a speed of which Fuzzy had not supposed them capable, as the dark, snaky form went twisting and turning through the under-growth with his nose to the patch-work of their trails. One old fellow took refuge in a stone pile, but the weasel squirmed his way after him, through every chink and crevice, till Fuzzy heard his victim utter his last unhappy squeal. ”

“ The tooth-brush brigade sallied forth as soon as the sun began slanting its long morning rays through the forest aisles, and the boys often began nodding at a ridiculously early hour around the bon-fire, tired from their strenuous day in the open. But each day found their spirits higher, their muscles harder, their eyes brighter,—and their appetites more insatiable. Ted was plumping up and Pedro trimming down on the self-same medicine. ”

“ Thus, without so much as wondering what made this strange beast so fearless, he leaped open-jawed upon the little porcupine. There was just one howl of agony, as he clamped his jaws on those barbed quills, and it was not the porcupine who gave it!
Whining and clawing at his tortured mouth, the wolf rolled about in the snow-drift, choking and spluttering in mingled wrath and terror. For Unk-Wunk’s terrible barbed quills were working deeper and deeper into the roof of his mouth. Finally he rolled over on them, and they pierced through to the brain. ”

“ But because of his thick fur, they couldn’t find a spot where they could reach him with their pincers except on the nose.
“Gee! I always get the worst of things!” rumbled the little brown bear, as he swept them off with one swipe of his furry paw, and would have shuffled away but for the sight that met his gaze.
Chuck, the chipmunk, stood there before him, paralyzed with fright. Coiled in front of him swayed an enormous bull snake, with red jaws open to swallow him.
If the snake had been stretched out full length, he would have been as long as the Ranger was tall. ”

“ How he wished he knew more of cave formations! Should he find opportunity to escape, how would he ever find his way out again?
Retracing their steps, they took the right hand turn. Here was another high roofed vault,—he could not see how high, he could only guess from the reverberation of their voices,—whose stalactites had become great pillars that gleamed yellowly. The floor sloped toward them till they had stiff climbing. On one wall was a limestone formation like a frozen cataract. And thrust into the wall beside it he saw a torch stick. ”

“ Fleet Foot and the starving fawns nibbled and nibbled at the hay-mow,—for the time, at least, safe and happy. But could they ever get back to the herd-yard, with those wolves still at large?
For once they were in luck. The Hired Man was not the only hunter who followed the wolves that night. Old Man Lynx, that fierce, furry fellow with tassels on his ears and claws that could rend like steel hooks, had also been driven down to the Valley by the winter’s famine. He, too, heard the howling of the wolves. ”

“ A great brown butcher bird lived in a thorn bush not far away. This horrid creature lived on mice and little birds, and like the witch of the fairy tale, hung his victims on the thorns till he was ready to eat them.
One day the children thought the canaries would like to be out of doors, and hung the cage in a pine tree. An hour later that butcher bird had reached in through the bars of the cage and bitten the heads off the whole canary family save one little one. He had been in the nest out of reach. ”

“ Had he known the Ranger’s whereabouts at that precise moment, he would have felt very differently.
Radcliffe, meantime, was staring into the dark recess of the cavern, but all he could see was the two shining eyes of whatever occupant was there. Was it bear or cougar? For both, he knew, took refuge in caves. The largeness of the eyes inclined him to the belief that it was a California mountain lion, and such it was part of his work to exterminate,—though the state also hires an official lion hunter.
That the great cats are cowards he well knew. ”

“ And he rolled himself up into a prickly ball in the top of a swaying birch tree.
“Old Man Lynx!” thought Frisky Fox, fairly beside himself with frenzy. Hanging there heels uppermost in the grapevine, he was as helpless as a mouse in a trap. And here was the great cat, his ancient enemy, creeping, creeping, creeping through the shadows, his nose sniffing this way and that for the scent that would tell him where to find a good supper. ”

“ These ground squirrels were skimpy tailed and stupid, and lived in holes that they dug for themselves and their large litters of young along the edges of the mountain meadows. Several families of them had home-steaded in one corner of the Ranger’s garden patch, where they ate things as fast as they grew. The Ranger was mighty glad when he saw Fuzzy after them.
The chums would each select a hole and see which could dig out a squirrel the quickest, dog or bear. But Fuzzy always won, for his long claws were much better digging implements than the pup’s. ”

“ Great skill and experience is needed for a deer to know where and how to put his feet down when he makes those great leaps of his. He may land, now among the rocks, now in marshy ground, slipping over mosses and scrambling over tree-trunks. It would be only too easy to break one of those slender legs, and be at the mercy of his enemies.
By the time the fawns were six weeks old, they had learned just how to land without stumbling and hurting their frail ankles. Then, one day, young Frisky Fox, hiding at the edge of the clearing, saw a strange sight. ”

“ Loosened rocks and bowlders began bounding down the cliffs.
261With the mountainside a choice between slippery, dripping rock slopes and sliding mud, fallen tree trunks and soggy forest floor, it was no mean test he had to meet. But as the irrepressible California sun once more burst forth in golden glory, the clean-washed air was all balsamic fragrance, every leaf and fir needle held at its tip a drop of opal, and the birds,—emerging from the holes in which they had safely hidden, those who survived,—burst into happy gratitude. ”

“ For the power to climb is the one great advantage that cats have over all members of the dog tribe.
Old Man Lynx himself was lean with famine, for the great storm had made hunting all but impossible for him. Not so much as a wood-mouse had shown its tracks on the snow for days. And there had been nothing in his rocky den save the dried and frozen bones of dinners long since past.
To surrender his supper to-night might mean starvation and actual death to him. But so it did to the wolves. It was to be a fight for life! ”

“ Fuzzy spent much time chasing field mice, or digging them out of their tunnels. One night the family was just sitting down to supper when a clawing at the door announced that Fuzzy wanted to come in. Coming proudly straight to the little girl, Fuzzy laid his catch in her lap. It was a fat field mouse!
The young mouse had not been hurt by Fuzzy’s jaws, and the instant he found himself free, he leaped to the table and raced across it and away, and not even Fuzzy could find him after that. ”

“ Where these level-lying meadows failed them pasturage for their burros, Norris guaranteed that there would be plenty of hanging meadows,—long, narrow, bowldery strips of weed enameled verdure slanting up and down the moraine-covered canyon sides, beginning away up at timber line, where springs the source of their life-giving moisture. ”

“ But Frisky was too wise a pup to think for an instant he could catch one. And so he finally trotted off to stay his appetite with field mice. But he told Father Red Fox about it that night in the den on the hillside, and the older fox made up his mind that next day he would be the one to watch when the fawns came to the meadow. If he couldn’t catch one, at least he liked to know all that went on in the woods. One never knew when an odd bit of knowledge might come in handy to a fellow that lives by his wits. ”

“ The pretty creatures lived along the rock ledges and manzanita bushes that surrounded the Ranger’s cabin. Chuck and Chipper were two young chipmunks who had been born that spring. Now their mother had a second brood and left them pretty much to themselves.
My, what fun they had playing tag and stuffing their cheeks with everything good to eat they could find! Their cheeks were built like pockets and extended away down the sides of their necks. All the long, sunny days they explored the interesting [Pg 39] world in which they found themselves,—a world of good things to eat. ”

“ As Long Lester drawled over the camp fire, the drowsy boys lived again in the days when a pinch of gold dust in a buckskin bag was currency, and red shirted miners gambled away their gains or drank it up, in a land of hot sunshine and hard toil, where a tin cup and a frying pan largely comprised their bachelor housekeeping apparatus, their provender such as could be brought in on jingle belled mule teams, their chief diversions the occasional open air 256meeting or the lynchings of their necessarily rough and ready justice. ”

“ Come quick! I do believe there is a deer out there—no, a doe, and two fawns!” cried the Boy of the Valley Farm, as the light from the open door threw a long ray across the barn-yard to the pasture beyond.
“Wait! I’ll get her for you!” exclaimed the Hired Man, springing for his gun. But at the Boy’s sharp command he dropped it, shame-faced.
Then from farther back in the evergreens came the spine-chilling howl of the gray wolves, baying their lost prey.
“Wolves, my son!” exclaimed the Farmer, joining the group in the doorway. “Wolves from Canada. It’s a hard winter that has brought them down. ”