Wood Folk at School — The Partridges' Roll Call, part 2

There were at least a dozen birds there, full-grown and strong of wing, that had not yet decided to scatter to the four winds, as had most of the coveys which one might meet on the burned lands.

All summer long, while berries are plenty, the flocks hold together, finding ten pairs of quiet eyes much better protection against surprises than one frightened pair.

Each flock is then under the absolute authority of the mother bird; and one who follows them gets some curious and intensely interesting glimpses of a partridge's education.

If the mother bird is killed, by owl or hawk or weasel, the flock still holds together, while berries last, under the leadership of one of their own number, more bold or cunning than the others.

But with the ripening autumn, when the birds have learned, or think they have learned, all the sights and sounds and dangers of the wilderness, the covey scatters; partly to cover a wider range in feeding as food grows scarcer; partly in natural revolt at maternal authority, which no bird or animal likes to endure after he has once learned to take care of himself.

I followed the flock rapidly, though cautiously, through an interminable tangle of alders that bordered the little stream, and learned some things about them; though they gave me no chance whatever for a rifle shot.

The mother was gone; their leader was a foxy bird, the smallest of the lot, who kept them moving in dense cover, running, crouching, hiding, inquisitive about me and watching me, yet keeping themselves beyond reach of harm.

All the while the leader talked to them, a curious language of cheepings and whistlings; and they answered back with questions or sharp exclamations as my head appeared in sight for a moment.

Where the cover was densest they waited till I was almost upon them before they whisked out of sight; and where there was a bit of opening they whirred up noisily on strong wings, or sailed swiftly away from a fallen log with the noiseless flight that a grouse knows so well how to use when the occasion comes.

Already the instinct to scatter was at work among them.

During the day they had probably been feeding separately along the great hillside; but with lengthening shadows they came together again to face the wilderness night in the peace and security of the old companionship.

And I had fortunately been quiet enough at my fishing to hear when the leader began to call them together and they had answered, here and there, from their feeding.

I gave up following them after a while--they were too quick for me in the alder tangle--and came out of the swamp to the ridge.

There I ran along a deer path and circled down ahead of them to a thicket of cedar, where I thought they might pass the night.

Presently I heard them coming--_Whit-kwit?

pr-r-r, pr-r-r, prut, prut!

_--and saw five or six of them running rapidly.

The little leader saw me at the same instant and dodged back out of sight.

Most of his flock followed him; but one bird, more inquisitive than the rest, jumped to a fallen log, drew himself up straight as a string, and eyed me steadily.

The little rifle spoke at his head promptly; and I stowed him away comfortably, a fine plump bird, in a big pocket of my hunting shirt.

At the report another partridge, questioning the unknown sound, flew to a thick spruce, pressed close against the trunk to hide himself, and stood listening intently.

Whether he was waiting to hear the sound again, or was frightened and listening for the call of the leader, I could not tell.

I fired at his head quickly, and saw him sail down against the hillside, with a loud thump and a flutter of feathers behind him to tell me that he was hard hit.

I followed him up the hill, hearing an occasional flutter of wings to guide my feet, till the sounds vanished into a great tangle of underbrush and fallen trees.

I searched here ten minutes or more in vain, then listened in the vast silence for a longer period; but the bird had hidden himself away in some hole or covert where an owl might pass by without finding him.

Reluctantly I turned away toward the swamp.

Close beside me was a fallen log; on my right was another; and the two had fallen so as to make the sides of a great angle, their tops resting together against the hill.

Between the two were several huge trees growing among the rocks and underbrush.

I climbed upon one of these fallen trees and moved along it cautiously, some eight or ten feet above the ground, looking down searchingly for a stray brown feather to guide me to my lost partridge.

Suddenly the log under my feet began to rock gently.

I stopped in astonishment, looking for the cause of the strange teetering; but there was nothing on the log beside myself.

After a moment I went on again, looking again for my partridge.

Again the log rocked, heavily this time, almost throwing me off.

Then I noticed that the tip of the other log, which lay balanced across a great rock, was under the tip of my log and was being pried up by something on the other end.

Some animal was there, and it flashed upon me suddenly that he was heavy enough to lift my weight with his stout lever.

I stole along so as to look behind a great tree--and there on the other log, not twenty feet away, a big bear was standing, twisting himself uneasily, trying to decide whether to go on or go back on his unstable footing.

He discovered me at the instant that my face appeared behind the tree.

Such surprise, such wonder I have seldom seen in an animal's face.

For a long moment he met my eyes steadily with his.

Then he began to twist again, while the logs rocked up and down.

Again he looked at the strange animal on the other log; but the face behind the tree had not moved nor changed; the eyes looked steadily into his.

With a startled movement he plunged off into the underbrush, and but for a swift grip on a branch the sudden lurch would have sent me off backward among the rocks.

As he jumped I heard a swift flutter of wings.

I followed it timidly, not knowing where the bear was, and in a moment I had the second partridge stowed away comfortably with his brother in my hunting shirt.

The rest of the flock had scattered widely by this time.

I found one or two and followed them; but they dodged away into the thick alders, where I could not find their heads quick enough with my rifle sight.

After a vain, hasty shot or two I went back to my fishing.

Woods and lake were soon quiet again.

The trout had stopped rising, in one of their sudden moods.

A vast silence brooded over the place, unbroken by any buzz of my noisy reel, and the twilight shadows were growing deeper and longer, when the soft, gliding, questioning chatter of partridges came floating out of the alders.

The leader was there, in the thickest tangle--I had learned in an hour to recognize his peculiar _Prut, prut_--and from the hillside and the alder swamp and the big evergreens his scattered flock were answering; here a _kwit_, and there a _prut_, and beyond a swift burr of wings, all drawing closer and closer together.

I had still a third partridge to get for my own hungry flock; so I stole swiftly back into the alder swamp.

There I found a little game path and crept along it on hands and knees, drawing cautiously near to the leader's continued calling.

[Illustration: "THEY WOULD TURN THEIR HEADS AND LISTEN INTENTLY"] In the midst of a thicket of low black alders, surrounded by a perfect hedge of bushes, I found him at last.

He was on the lower end of a fallen log, gliding rapidly up and down, spreading wings and tail and budding ruff, as if he were drumming, and sending out his peculiar call at every pause.

Above him, in a long line on the same log, five other partridges were sitting perfectly quiet, save now and then, when an answer came to the leader's call, they would turn their heads and listen intently till the underbrush parted cautiously and another bird flitted up beside them.

Then another call, and from the distant hillside a faint _kwit-kwit_ and a rush of wings in answer, and another partridge would shoot in on swift pinions to pull himself up on the log beside his fellows.

The line would open hospitably to let him in; then the row grew quiet again, as the leader called, turning their heads from side to side for the faint answers.

There were nine on the log at last.

The calling grew louder and louder;

yet for several minutes now no answer came back.

The flock grew uneasy;

the leader ran from his log into the brush and back again, calling loudly, while a low chatter, the first break in their strange silence, ran back and forth through the family on the log.

There were others to come; but where were they, and why did they tarry?

It was growing late;

already an owl had hooted, and the roosting place was still far away.

_Prut, prut, pr-r-r-reee!

_ called the leader, and the chatter ceased as the whole flock listened.

I turned my head to the hillside to listen also for the laggards; but there was no answer.

Save for the cry of a low-flying loon and the snap of a twig--too sharp and heavy for little feet to make--the woods were all silent.

As I turned to the log again, something warm and heavy rested against my side.

Then I knew; and with the knowledge came a swift thrill of regret that made me feel guilty and out of place in the silent woods.

The leader was calling, the silent flock were waiting for two of their number who would never answer the call again.

I lay scarcely ten yards from the log on which the sad little drama went on in the twilight shadows, while the great silence grew deep and deeper, as if the wilderness itself were in sympathy and ceased its cries to listen.

Once, at the first glimpse of the group, I had raised my rifle and covered the head of the largest bird; but curiosity to know what they were doing held me back.

Now a deeper feeling had taken its place; the rifle slid from my hand and lay unnoticed among the fallen leaves.

Again the leader called.

The flock drew itself up, like a row of gray-brown statues, every eye bright, every ear listening, till some vague sense of fear and danger drew them together; and they huddled on the ground in a close group; all but the leader, who stood above them, counting them over and over, apparently, and anon sending his cry out into the darkening woods.

I took one of the birds out of my pocket and began to smooth the rumpled brown feathers.

How beautiful he was, how perfectly adapted in form and color for the wilderness in which he had lived!

And I had taken his life, the only thing he had.

Its beauty and something deeper, which is the sad mystery of all life, were gone forever.

All summer long he had run about on glad little feet, delighting in nature's abundance, calling brightly to his fellows as they glided in and out in eager search through the lights and shadows.

Fear on the one hand, absolute obedience to his mother on the other, had been the two great factors of his life.

Between them he grew strong, keen, alert, knowing perfectly when to run and when to fly and when to crouch motionless, as danger passed close with blinded eyes.

Then when his strength was perfect, and he glided alone through the wilderness coverts in watchful self-dependence--a moment's curiosity, a quick eager glance at the strange animal standing so still under the cedar, a flash, a noise; and all was over.

The call of the leader went searching, searching through the woods; but he gave no heed any more.

The hand had grown suddenly very tender as it stroked his feathers.

I

had taken his life; I must try to answer for him now.

At the thought I raised my head and gave the clear _whit-kwit_ of a running partridge.

Instantly the leader answered; the flock sprang to the log again and turned their heads in my direction to listen.

Another call, and now the flock dropped to the ground and lay close, while the leader drew himself up straight on the log and became part of a dead stub beside him.

Something was wrong in my call; the birds were suspicious, knowing not what danger had kept their fellows silent so long, and now threatened them out of the black alders.

A moment's intent listening; then the leader stepped slowly down from his log and came towards me cautiously, halting, hiding, listening, gliding, swinging far out to one side and back again in stealthy advance, till he drew himself up abruptly at sight of my face peering out of the underbrush.

For a long two minutes he never stirred so much as an eyelid.

Then he glided swiftly back, with a faint, puzzled, questioning _kwit-kwit?

_ to where his flock were waiting.

A low signal that I could barely hear, a swift movement--then the flock thundered away in scattered flight into the silent, friendly woods.

Ten minutes later I was crouched in some thick underbrush looking up into a great spruce, when I could just make out the leader standing by an upright branch in sharp silhouette against the glowing west.

I had followed his swift flight, and now lay listening again to his searching call as it went out through the twilight, calling his little flock to the roosting tree.

From the swamp and the hillside and far down by the quiet lake they answered, faintly at first, then with clearer call and the whirr of swift wings as they came in.

But already I had seen and heard enough; too much, indeed, for my peace of mind.

I crept away through the swamp, the eager calls following me even to my canoe; first a plaint, as if something were lacking to the placid lake and quiet woods and the soft beauty of twilight; and then a faint question, always heard in the _kwit_ of a partridge, as if only I could explain why two eager voices would never again answer to roll call when the shadows lengthened.

[Illustration] Umquenawis The Mighty