Wood Folk at School — Umquenawis the Mighty, part 1

[Illustration] Umquenawis the Mighty is lord of the woodlands.

None other among the wood folk is half so great as he; none has senses so keen to detect a danger, nor powers so terrible to defend himself against it.

So he fears nothing, moving through the big woods like a master; and when you see him for the first time in the wilderness pushing his stately, silent way among the giant trees, or plunging like a great engine through underbrush and over windfalls, his nose up to try the wind, his broad antlers far back on his mighty shoulders, while the dead tree that opposes him cracks and crashes down before his rush, and the alders beat a rattling, snapping tattoo on his branching horns,--when you see him thus, something within you rises up, like a soldier at salute, and says: "Milord the Moose!"

And though the rifle is in your hand, its deadly muzzle never rises from the trail.

[Illustration: "PLUNGING LIKE A GREAT ENGINE THROUGH UNDERBRUSH AND OVER WINDFALLS"]

That great head with its massive crown is too big for any house.

Hung stupidly on a wall, in a room full of bric-a-brac, as you usually see it, with its shriveled ears that were once living trumpets, its bulging eyes that were once so small and keen, and its huge muzzle stretched out of all proportion, it is but misplaced, misshapen ugliness.

It has no more, and scarcely any higher, significance than a scalp on the pole of a savage's wigwam.

Only in the wilderness, with the irresistible push of his twelve-hundred pound, force-packed body behind it, the crackling underbrush beneath, and the lofty spruce aisles towering overhead, can it give the tingling impression of magnificent power which belongs to Umquenawis the Mighty in his native wilds.

There only is his head at home; and only as you see it there, whether looking out in quiet majesty from a lonely point over a silent lake, or leading him in his terrific rush through the startled forest, will your heart ever jump and your nerves tingle in that swift thrill which stirs the sluggish blood to your very finger tips, and sends you quietly back to camp with your soul at peace--well satisfied to leave Umquenawis where he is, rather than pack him home to your admiring friends in a freight car.

Though Umquenawis be lord of the wilderness, there are two things, and two things only, which he sometimes fears: the smell of man, and the spiteful crack of a rifle.

For Milord the Moose has been hunted and has learned fear, which formerly he was stranger to.

But when you go deep into the wilderness, where no hunter has ever gone, and where the bang of a rifle following the roar of a birch-bark trumpet has never broken the twilight stillness, there you may find him still, as he was before fear came; there he will come smashing down the mountain side at your call, and never circle to wind an enemy; and there, when the mood is on him, he will send you scrambling up the nearest tree for your life, as a squirrel goes when the fox is after him.

Once, in such a mood, I saw him charge a little wiry guide, who went up a spruce tree with his snowshoes on; and never a bear did the trick quicker, spite of the four-foot webs in which his feet were tangled.

We were pushing upstream, late one afternoon, to the big lake at the headwaters of a wilderness river.

Above the roar of rapids far behind, and the fret of the current near at hand, the rhythmical _clunk_, _clunk_ of the poles and the _lap_, _lap_ of my little canoe as she breasted the ripples were the only sounds that broke the forest stillness.

We were silent, as men always are to whom the woods have spoken their deepest message, and to whom the next turn of the river may bring its thrill of unexpected things.

Suddenly, as the bow of our canoe shot round a point, we ran plump upon a big cow moose crossing the river.

At Simmo's grunt of surprise she stopped short and whirled to face us.

And there she stood, one huge question mark from nose to tail, while the canoe edged in to the lee of a great rock and hung there quivering, with poles braced firmly on the bottom.

We were already late for camping, and the lake was still far ahead.

I

gave the word at last, after a few minutes' silent watching, and the canoe shot upward.

But the big moose, instead of making off into the woods, as a well-behaved moose ought to do, splashed straight toward us.

Simmo, in the bow, gave a sweeping flourish of his pole, and we all yelled in unison; but the moose came on steadily, quietly, bound to find out what the queer thing was that had just come up river and broken the solemn stillness.

"Bes' keep still; big moose make-um trouble sometime," muttered Noel behind me; and we dropped back silently into the lee of the friendly rock, to watch awhile longer and let the big creature do as she would.

For ten minutes more we tried every kind of threat and persuasion to get the moose out of the way, ending at last by sending a bullet _zipping_ into the water under her body; but beyond an angry stamp of the foot there was no response, and no disposition whatever to give us the stream.

Then I bethought me of a trick that I had discovered long before by accident.

Dropping down to the nearest bank, I crept up behind the moose, hidden in the underbrush, and began to break twigs, softly at first, then more and more sharply, as if something were coming through the woods fearlessly.

At the first suspicious crack the moose whirled, hesitated, started nervously across the stream, twitching her nostrils and wigwagging her big ears to find out what the crackle meant, and hurrying more and more as the sounds grated harshly upon her sensitive nerves.

Next moment the river was clear and our canoe was breasting the rippling shallows, while the moose watched us curiously, half hidden in the alders.

That is a good trick, for occasions.

The animals all fear twig snapping.

Only never try it at night, with a bull, in the calling season, as I did once unintentionally.

Then he is apt to mistake you for his tantalizing mate and come down on you like a tempest, giving you a big scare and a monkey scramble into the nearest tree before he is satisfied.

Within the next hour I counted seven moose, old and young, from the canoe; and when we ran ashore at twilight to the camping ground on the big lake, the tracks of an enormous bull were drawn sharply across our landing.

The water was still trickling into them, showing that he had just vacated the spot at our approach.

How do I know it was a bull?

At this season the bulls travel constantly, and the points of the hoofs are worn to a clean, even curve.

The cows, which have been living in deep retirement all summer, teaching their ungainly calves the sounds and smells and lessons of the woods, travel much less; their hoofs, in consequence, are generally long and pointed and overgrown.

Two miles above our camp was a little brook, with an alder swale on one side and a dark, gloomy spruce tangle on the other--an ideal spot for a moose to keep her little school, I thought, when I discovered the place a few days later.

There were tracks on the shore, plenty of them; and I knew I had only to watch long enough to see the mother and her calf, and to catch a glimpse, perhaps, of what no man has ever yet seen clearly;

that is, a moose teaching her little one how to hide his bulk; how to move noiselessly and undiscovered through underbrush where, one would think, a fox must make his presence known; how to take a windfall on the run; how to breast down a young birch or maple tree and keep it under his body while he feeds on the top,--and a score of other things that every moose must know before he is fit to take care of himself in the big woods.