Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

“ Instantly he reared like a mad horse, and brought down his sharp hoofs on the enemy's shoulder.
It was a terrific blow, battering like a sledge-hammer and cutting like an axe, and the bear roared under it. But it was not a finishing blow, and it let the foe reach close quarters. The bear got the bull's neck into the grip of his mighty forearms, and pulled him down. The moose struggled valiantly, thrashing backward with jagged antlers, and tearing up the ground in desperate efforts to regain his feet. But victory was now, beyond peradventure, within the clutch of the bear. ”

“ Every waving tentacle shrank back and lay moveless, as if suddenly paralyzed, and he flattened himself down as best he could beside the dark hulk of the wreck. Well he knew that dark shape was a whale—and a whale was the one being he knew of which he had cause to fear. Against those rending jaws his cable-like tentacles and tearing beak were of no avail, his unarmoured body utterly defenceless.
The whale, however,—not a sperm, but one of a much smaller, though more savage, species—the "killer,"—did not catch sight of the giant cuttlefish cringing below him. ”

“ Annoyed, because he was not hunting bear and did not want to scare the game he was seeking, the woodsman stepped out into the full light as he raised his rifle.
But he did not have to shoot. If he was not hunting bear, neither was the bear hunting man. At this unlooked-for apparition of a man with a voice like a cow moose, the bear almost stopped in mid-jump, as if struck by an explosive bullet. Fairly falling over in his desperate haste to stop himself, he clawed the turf wildly, wheeled about, and scuttled off into the woods like a frightened woodchuck. The hunter smiled grimly, and went on. ”

“ A Duel in the Deep
OUGH there was no wind, the wide surface of the estuary was curiously disturbed. In from the open sea came swiftly as it were a wedge of roughness, its edges lightly dancing, sparkling with blue-and-silver flashes. The strange disturbance kept on straight up the channel, leaving the placid shoals along-shore to shine unruffled in the low, level-glancing Arctic sun.
Down along the flat, interminable shore, picking his way watchfully among the ragged ice-cakes of the tempestuous spring, came a huge white bear. ”

“ At last, one violet evening in the close of the sunset, as he stood fetlock-deep in the chill water, drinking, a light sound of many feet caught his alert ear. Lifting his head quickly, he saw a herd of strange-looking, heavy-antlered, whitish-brown deer emerging in long line from the woods and crossing the open toward the foot of the lake. The leader of the caribou herd, a massive bull, nearly white, with antlers almost equal to those of a moose, returned the stallion's inquiring stare with a glance of mild curiosity, but did not halt an instant. ”

“ When it is young moose or deer he is wanting, his way is to lie hidden behind some brush-screened stump or boulder till the victim comes by, then dart out a huge paw and settle the matter at one stroke. Such might well have been the fate of the little red buck that summer but that he learned to look with wary eye on every ambush that might hide a bear. To all these perilous places he gave wide berth, sometimes avoiding them altogether and sometimes circling about at safe distances till he could get the wind of them and find out whether they held a menace or not. ”

“ As he dived, either his own craft or some subtle forewarning led him to twist sharply to one side. But for this, his fighting would have ended then and there, his heart split by the thrust of that giant tusk. As it was, the mad upward rush of the narwhal missed its aim. The bear felt a couple of salmon hurled in his face. Then the horn shot past his neck; and a black mass smote him full in the chest, with a force that knocked the wind out of him, and bore him, clawing and biting passionately, back to the surface. ”

“ Sometimes a lightning plunge and sweep of her armed paw would land a gleaming fish upon the ice, a pleasant variation to the diet of red-blooded seal-meat. And presently, as the long sunlight gathered warmth, and the brief, swift heat of the Arctic summer approached, rushing down upon the ice as if it knew how short must be its reign, the melting of the snow on sheltered slopes and southward-facing hollows uncovered a wealth of mosses, and lichens, and sprouting roots, most grateful to the bears' flesh-wearied palates. ”

“ As he swung, his gleaming, snow-white head and neck were stretched downward toward the earth. His fierce yellow eyes, unwavering, brilliant, and clear like crystal, deep set beneath straight, overhanging brows, searched the far panorama with an incredibly piercing gaze. At such a distance that the most penetrating human eye—the eye of a sailor, a plains' ranger, a backwoods' huntsman, or an enumerator of the stars—could not discern him in his soundless altitude, he could mark the fall of a leaf or the scurry of a mouse in the sedge-grass. ”

“ A stealthy-footed, moon-faced, fierce-eyed beast came soundlessly to the edge of the thicket and glared in searchingly. The fawn knew in some dim way that this was a deadly danger that confronted him. But he never winked or moved an anxious ear. He hardly dared to breathe. It was almost as if a hand of ice had clutched him and held him still beyond even the possibility of a tremor. For perhaps a full minute the huge lynx stood there half crouching, with one big, padded fore paw upheld, piercing the gloom with his implacable stare. ”

“ On one of the little jutting points, where a log lay half-submerged in trailing water-weeds, stood a tall blue heron balanced motionless on one long, stilt-like leg. Its head, drawn flat back between the high shoulders, came about ten inches above the tops of the sedge. Its long, keen, javelin-like beak lay along its protruding breast, in readiness to dart in any direction. Its round, gem-like eyes, hard as glass in their glitter, took in not only the wide, blue-and-green empty landscape, but equally every movement of the sedge-fringe and the weedy shallows along-shore. ”

“ At such times, if there were no greening hollows near by, where she might make a bloodless banquet, the old bear would call to her aid those great powers of swimming which made her almost as much at home in the water as the seal itself. Marking some seals at rest by the edge of some far-jutting, naked ice-field, where there was no possibility of her creeping upon them unobserved, she would slip into the water in the seclusion of some little cove, and swim straight seaward, swimming so low that only the tip of her muzzle was to be seen. ”

“ Neither the bear creeping up from below the dam, nor the two lynxes stealing down from above it, had eyes or thought for anything in the world but the desperately toiling beavers. Their hunger was gnawing at their lean stomachs, the fever of the hunt was in their veins, and the kill was all but within reach. A few moments more, and the rush would come, up from the fir thickets—the long, terrible spring and pounce, down from the juniper scrub. ”

“ The Arctic summer, meanwhile, with its perpetual sun, poured down upon the world in swift, delicious heat; and the desolate world began to laugh, with vivid greenery about the bubbling sources of the springs, and sudden fringes of bloom, yellow and pink, along the edges of the perpetual ice, and the painted fluttering of butterflies in every southward-sloping hollow where there was earth enough to hold the roots of flowers. The little winged adventurers would sometimes flit abroad over the snow, questing perilously beyond the narrow confines of their home. ”

“ Lying with his head up-stream, his long fins and broad tail slowly waving to hold him in his position against the current, the little parr waited and watched while his food was brought down to him by the untiring flow. Sometimes it was a luckless leaf-grub, or a caddis-worm torn from his moorings, that came tumbling and bumping down along the smooth pebbles of the bottom, to be gathered into the young salmon's eager maw. Sometimes it was a fly or moth or bee or beetle that came bobbing with drenched, helpless wings along the tops of the ripples. ”

“ When the white stallion came to the surface, snorting with terror and blowing the salt from his wide nostrils, he struck out desperately, and soon cleared the turmoil of the breakers. Over the vast, smooth swells he swam easily, his graceful, high head out of water. But at first, in his bewilderment and panic, he swam straight seaward. In a few moments, however, as he saw that he seemed to be overcoming disaster very well, his wits returned, and the nerve of his breeding came to his aid. ”

“ Meanwhile the cold deepened swiftly; the wind grew savage and shrieked over the cages and the roofs; and the snow, dry and hard like the driven needles of the Arctic night, thickened so that one could not see ten paces before his nose. Through the throbbing drift the attendants went hurrying about the open cages, fixing shelter for the animals that needed it. The cold, the savage noises of the wind, the sharp buffets of snow that struck into his den, at last brought the bear to his feet. ”

“ Along the shore the massive ice was still unbroken for miles out; but where the currents and tides and storms had begun to vanquish it, and the steel blue waves were eating into it hour by hour beneath the growing sunlight, there the life of the north was gathering. Sea-birds clamoured, and mated, and dived, and flew in circles, or settled in flickering gray and white masses on every jutting promontory of black rock. Along the blue-white ice-edge seals basked and barked, their soft eyes keeping incessant watch against the perils that always lurked about them. ”

“ To northward and southeastward a horizon line of low uplands, misty purple. Along the farthest west a glimmer and sparkle of the sea. Everywhere else, wide, wind-washed levels of marsh, pallid green or ochre yellow, cut here and there with winding tide-channels and mud-flats of glistening copper red. Twisting this way and that in erratic curves, the unbroken, sodded lines of the dyke, fencing off the red flats and tide-channels, and dividing the green expanses of protected dyke-marsh from the ochre yellow stretches of the salt marsh, as yet but half-reclaimed from the sea. ”

“ Into this opalescent scene, some days before the freshet reached its height, the logs began to come down. In the upper country every tributary stream was pouring them out in shoals,—heavy, blind, butting, and blundering shoals,—to be carried by the great river down to the booms and saws above its mouth. Some, caught in eddies, were thrust aside up the bank to lie and slowly rot among the living trees. But most, darting and wallowing through mad rapids, or shooting falls, or whirling and circling dully down the more tranquil reaches of the tide, made shift to accomplish their voyage. ”

“ For all his rage, he had no mind to risk a maimed wing. In a second or two he swooped again, this time as if to catch the foe in the back; but he took care not to come too close. The bear whirled on his haunches, and struck viciously; but his claws met nothing but empty air, while a stiff wing-tip brushed smartingly across his eyes.
Again, and yet again, the eagle swooped, never coming quite within reach. Again and yet again the bear, boiling with embarrassed fury, whirled and struck, but in vain. He struck nothing more tangible than air. ”

“ At the same time he could not but observe a sudden awakening of interest in life among the languid "slinks". They began to show a better appetite, to move about more alertly, to make themselves more dangerous to the smaller fish that crossed their paths. The water grew more and more salt,—with an ever increasing zest to it which made the smelt amazingly keen for his food. Then the shield of ice above him, beneath which he had so long travelled, suddenly vanished, and through long, free shoreless waves he felt the sunlight streaming down to him unimpeded. ”

“ The white bear was an old male, restless, and of [Pg 141] savage temper. Like many of his fellows among the older males, he had not been so fortunate as to slumber away the long, terrific, Arctic winter in the shelter of a snow-buried rock. All through the months of dark and tempest, of ghostly auroras and cold unspeakable, he had roamed the dead world and fought his fight with hunger. His craft, his strength, his fierce desperation in attack, had pulled him through. Lean and savage, he sniffed the oncoming of spring, and watched the ice go grinding out. ”

“ Very deep they swam, so deep that, countless as their armies were, they left no trace to betray them to the nets or hooks of the fishing fleets. In those faintly glimmering depths the slow tide stirred softly, unmoved by whatever Arctic storm might rave and shrink over its surface. In the gloom the tiny creatures of the sea shone by their own pale phosphorescence, and in such unimaginable millions did they swarm that the journeying salmon had but to open their mouths to be fed. ”

“ Leaning over the bulwarks, he murmured to the great green prowling shape of his submarine jailer:
"You're no worse than lots of men, you ain't, damn you!"
As if in answer to this equivocal compliment the shark sailed in to within a little more than arm's length of the bulwark, and looked up at Mahoney with cold, malignant eyes. Mahoney kicked at him hysterically, then turned away and drenched himself where the little waves ran up shallow over the slope of the deck. ”

“ The bear's hungry little eyes blazed savagely at this. He imagined the hordes had taken alarm at his dread presence,—a natural imagining on his part, since he knew of nothing but the old bull walrus that dared ever await his approach. But as a matter of fact the eager myriads of the salmon, thrilling with life and vigour and the mating fire of [Pg 143] spring, were no more conscious of the savage animal than if he had been a rock or an ice-floe. The joy of the incoming rush was in their splendid sinews, and the lure of the shallow, singing rapids in their veins. ”

“ It was a "killer" whale, or grampus, the most redoubtable and implacable fighter of all the kindreds of the sea. Jan saw its wide jaws shear off three mighty tentacles at once, close at the base. The others writhed up hideously and fastened upon him, but under the surging of his resistless muscles their tissues tore apart like snapped cables. Huge masses of the monster's ghastly flesh were bitten off, and thrown aside. Then, gaining a grip that took in the monster's head and the roots of the tentacles, the killer shook his prey as a bulldog might shake a fat sheep. ”

“ His little, deep eyes red with fury, the bull rearing himself on his flippers and lunging forward with awkward but irresistible force, like a toppling mountain, seeking to crush his enemy and at the same time catch her under the terrific downward thrust of his tusks. As he fought he bellowed hoarsely, and panted with great windy, wheezy breaths, while the walrus cows swam slowly up and down by the edge of the ice, watching the struggle with their small, impassive eyes. ”

“ Amid this teeming life, which the returning sun had brought back to the ice-fields, the old she-bear, with her cub close at her heels, moved craftily. She lurked behind piled-up ice-cakes, crept from shelter to shelter, and moved as noiselessly as a wraith of snow on the hair-tufted pads of her great feet. Sometimes her tireless hunting was promptly rewarded, particularly when some inexperienced seal had been foolish enough to lie basking close beside an ice-cake large enough to give cover to the cunning hunter. ”

“ The bear, on the other hand, was not quite sure that he was willing to pay the price of vengeance. His blood surging in the swollen veins, he growled with heavy menace, and rocking forward upon his haunches he seemed on the point of rushing in. But he knew how those powerful knife-edged claws of the lynxes could rend. He knew that their light bodies were strong and swift and elusive, their teeth almost as punishing as his own. He felt himself the master; nevertheless he realized that it would cost dear to enforce that mastery. ”

“ The snow vanished swiftly from the laden branches of fir and spruce [Pg 248] and hemlock, and the silent woods stood up black and terrible against the weeping sky. On the ground and on the ice of pond and stream the snow shrank, settled, and assumed a grayish complexion. Water, presently, gathered in great spreading, leaden-coloured pools on the ice; and on the naked knolls the bare moss and petty shrubs began to emerge. Every narrow watercourse soon carried two streams,—the temperate, fettered, summer-mindful stream below the ice, and the swollen, turbulent flood above. ”