Allen Chaffee

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were mice, too, to be found under the fallen logs farther back in the woods. These mice of the high Sierras were red-backed fellows whose coats so matched the reddish soil that they were hard to see, even when they sat right out in plain sight. Fuzzy depended more on his nose than his eyes when he followed their run-ways around the stumps and rocks that hid their homes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fuzzy ran till he was safely away from that dangerous neighborhood, then he began to feel the effects of the poison. His foot swelled, and he felt as if he could lie right down and die.
A great many animals would have died. A man who has been struck by a rattler can only be saved by drawing all the poison out of the wound, and other mighty serious treatment.
It was a mighty serious matter with the little bear. ”

“ The Ranger made him a bed on the top of the pack that the burro carried, and tied him so that he couldn’t get down,—and there he was shortly snoozing, while the June sun dried his fur, and the trail climbed higher and higher. Life had taken a new turn for young Fuzzy-Wuzz. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They called him, they searched the woods for some trace of his footprints in the soft ground left by the early rains, but nowhere could they find hide nor hair of him.
“Do you suppose a lion’s got him?” they worried.
“No,” laughed the Ranger. “I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he had gone to hibernating. You know a bear always sleeps the winter away. He can’t find anything more to eat, with the snow deep on the ground, and he can’t keep warm unless he eats, so he just creeps off into some hole and curls up into a ball, with his toes inside, and sleeps till spring.” ”

“ Then the young mice, if they were old enough to run, would race in all directions, and Fuzzy-Wuzz could only turn around and around, wondering which one to chase first, while Wiggledy barked and hopped about in wild excitement. ”

“ The children welcomed him ardently. He was a friendly, wriggling fellow, was Wiggledy,—as they promptly named him. Just a yellow puppy, part terrier and part something else, the Ranger thought him. But a love-hungry heart beat in that furry chest. He was soon pals with both children.
Young animals can generally be trained to eat out of the same dish. But Ring-tail was a half grown cat when Wiggledy arrived, and it was too late, so far as she was concerned, to make friends between them. ”

“ The clothes pole only went so far, and it had no bark and was dreadfully hard to get one’s claws into; but Fuzzy used to scramble up and down that clothes pole for all he was worth, pausing each time at the top to sit looking down at the children.
As the weeks flew by and the little bear grew stronger, he longed more and more [Pg 14] for the freedom to climb and romp and race the way Mother Nature meant him to. It got to be mighty tiresome to live on the end of a chain or be cooped up in the cabin. ”

“ They were coyotes, in search of their supper,—and Fuzzy-Wuzz had not forgotten the old coyote that used to howl below his mother’s den.
These coyotes, as it happened, had a family of fourteen little ones hidden in a cave on the hillside. That meant that they had to bring home a great many mice and rabbits for their family, which was still too young to go hunting with them.
Had the Ranger known about them, he would have made an end to them; for many a time they had robbed his chicken house, or harried a new-born colt, for their meat was anything too young and helpless to escape their jaws. ”

“ Now most of the wild folk who kill at all, kill because they must eat. But the weasel is different: he kills for the love of killing. He is the villain of the play. No mouse or chipmunk whose trail he starts to follow ever gets away from him.
[Pg 127]
Now there was a big rabbit that Fuzzy had chased off and on all summer, but always the little animal flapped its ears saucily and got away. It was not afraid of Fuzzy, and could easily outrun him. The rabbit had been eating every green thing that came up in the Ranger’s garden, and Fuzzy had felt it his duty to rid the place of the fellow. ”

“ Now the rattler always plays fair. It gives warning before it strikes. As an actual fact, it will not strike at all unless some one comes near stepping on it or makes it fear for its life. But the unfortunate Fuzzy-Wuzz had actually stepped into the retreat of a whole colony of baby snakes. And the babies themselves were equipped with poison fangs. There must have been other mothers there, too, the way they rattled. And now the first snake was all coiled ready to spring again, her ugly flat head rising straight up out of the middle of the coil and her tail again rattling its buttons warningly. ”

“ She looked doubtfully at Fuzzy-Wuzz.
“The cub never could have done it,” the Ranger said. “If he had climbed up there, he would have knocked down a lot of stuff.”
“No, but what can have become of the nuts? There isn’t a sign of mice, either. And we never have a human thief, away up here in the mountains. Besides, what a funny thing it would be for a thief just to take the pine nuts and nothing else.”
“The thief must be some one of our furry friends, some one who is especially fond of nuts,” suggested the Ranger. ”

“ For a time Fuzzy-Wuzz paid little attention to Clickety-Clack, as the owl generally slept all day and the cub all night. But one evening he made a sad, sad mistake, did the little bear. As the owl floated down to the hearth rug, Fuzzy made a playful pounce for him. He caught the owl between his fore paws. But as he opened his jaws to take a nip at the feathered back, he got an awful surprise. ”

“ And Fuzzy, returning at that moment, wondered why every one scolded.
When the Ranger came in with the pack train, young Bucky’s muzzle was white with flour and his sides puffed out amazingly. “Here’s the culprit,” he sang out. “Trust a burro for raiding camp every chance he gets. Nothing but a donkey could pull through after a spree like what he’s been on.” ”

“ After that they never put him on a leash, and Fuzzy never stayed away after dark,—at least not while he was such a tiny cub.
One morning the Ranger found that a mountain lion had been down to the corral. From the footprints he judged that the cows had driven the great cat away with their horns. But there was soon to be a new calf, and he decided to spend that day in hunting the lion.
The California mountain lion is a great, tawny beast as long as a man is tall, and it is fortunate that he is such a coward that he runs when he sees a human being. ”

“ Off on the mountain peak their father, a great, handsome buck with branching antlers, was in retreat, with half-a-dozen other deer, while their horns were in velvet, for this velvety fur that covers the new growth of horn is tender, and the deer brush of the lower slopes would hurt it.
But alas for the wild mother, who would [Pg 26] willingly die fighting for her little ones! At the very moment that she lay nuzzling them so happily, the giant cat was crouched along the limb of a fir tree watching, with yellow eyes blinking hungrily. ”

“ With one sweep of her great, steel-strong fore arm she delivered a blow on the back of his neck. It felled him flat, for his spine was broken. Such is the strength of a full grown brown bear. Lucky he is a good natured animal when no one molests him.
Calling gently to her cubs to follow, she now hastened back to the den. Fuzzy [Pg 118] stepped into view as she neared him, whining an eager greeting. But she only growled out a warning not to come near her babies. Fuzzy thought best to obey. Slowly he wandered back to the river, then on home to the Ranger’s cabin. ”

“ Not the least little bit in the world. Chuck never tries to fight any one. His safety lies in running away when danger threatens. He only cowered down, quaking, with fear, his warm, furry sides panting hotly.
Until he could make a cage, the boy tethered him out on a leash, on a string as long as the cabin kitchen, and left him with a handful of peanuts. But the prisoner was too frightened to eat. He was even more so when he was turned loose in the cracker box, across the open side of which the boy had tacked a piece of screen wire. ”