Mooswa & Others of the Boundaries Part 11

"Where is the Man?" queried Black King.

"Sleeping!" answered Jack. "He makes a noise with his nose like fat Muskwa does when he runs from Grizzly."

"That's a pretty lodge," remarked Beaver, critically. "When will they flood it?"

"Stupid! they don't live in water," reproved Jay. "If it is wet they make a little hollow path and run the water off."

"Is that a Dead-fall, Jack?" asked Muskwa, pointing his gray nozzle at a small square building that was three logs high.

"It's their Shack; they started it yesterday."

"A poor Lodge!" declared Umisk. "The first flood will undermine the corners, and down it will come. Have they no trowel-tails to round it up with good blue-clay?"

"Umisk, you should travel. Your ideas are limited. Have they not built their Shack on high ground where there will be no flood?"

"But they'll freeze in the Winter," persisted Beaver. "The water would keep them warm if they flooded it."

"They've got a stove," the Courier answered.

"What's a stove?" asked Lynx.

"You'll find out, Mister Cat, when they make bouillon of your ribs.

It's that iron-thing with one long ear."

"Is that their breakfast--that pile of wood-meat?" queried Beaver.

"Yes, meat for the stove," piped Jack. "Do you think they have teeth like a wood-axe and eat bark because you do?"

"They have queer teeth, sure enough," retorted Trowel Tail. "See this tree stump, cut flat from two sides, all full of notches, as though a Kit-Beaver who didn't know his business had nibbled it down. How in the name of Good Dams they can fell trees into a stream that way I can't make out. This tree fell on land and they had to carry the logs.

They're silly creatures and have much to learn."

"There's The Boy!" whispered Jack, nudging Muskwa in the ribs with his wing.

They all peered eagerly at the door of the tent, for a white-skinned hand was unlacing it. Then a fair face, with rosy cheeks, topped by a ma.s.s of yellow hair, was thrust through the opening, and presently a lad of fourteen stepped out, stretched his arms upward, and commenced whistling like a bird.

"That's the Boy-call," said Black King, in a soft voice. "Listen, Comrades, so that we may know it. Francois gives voice to the Man-call: 'Hi, yi! hi, yi! E-e-e-g-o-o-o-!' which means, in their talk, 'Hear!

hear! it is I--I--A Man!' That is because they claim to be Lords of all the Animal Kingdom, even as I am Ruler in our own Boundaries."

"What a lovely Pup!" cried the Red Widow, enthusiastically; "he's got yellow hair just like my Babe--look, Stripes! Plump Birds! but I wish I had him in my litter."

"'Pup,' indeed!" exclaimed Whisky-Jack, indignantly. "A Man-Boy called 'Pup,' by a frowsy old Fox Widow."

"Clerk!" interrupted Black King, angrily.

"Francois! Francois!" called The Boy, putting his face inside the tent; "the sun is up, the fog is gone, and I'm as hungry as a Wolf."

Rof started. "Gur-r-r-! how does the Cub know my stomach is lean because of the Seventh Year famine?"

A pair of sharp, black eyes gleamed from the tent flap. They belonged to the Half-breed Trapper, Francois.

"Move back, Brothers, a little into the Willows," whispered Black King; "he has Devil-eyes, like Wolverine."

"His Majesty flatters you, Carcajou," sneered Whisky-Jack.

Francois came out, took his axe, and made some shavings from a Jack-pine stick.

"Will they eat that?" asked Beaver.

The Breed stepped over to a Birch tree, peeled from its side a handful of silver, ribbon-like bark, and lighted it with a match; it blazed and crackled like oil-soaked shavings. Then he shoved it into the stove, put chips and three sticks of wood in, shut the door, and thick black smoke curled up from the stove pipe. The animals stared with extraordinary interest.

Whisky-Jack craned his head, and watched the effect of this magic on his Comrades.

"That's the Devil-thing that destroyed all the Birds and their Eggs,"

said the Red Widow. "It's the Man-fire."

Blue Wolf was trembling. "E-u-h! E-u-h!" he whined; "Man's Fire-medicine. It grows like the wind, and destroys like the Rabbit plague. Once seven Brothers of mine stalked a Man and he started this Fire-medicine."

"What happened, Rof?" asked Carcajou.

"The Man escaped."

"And your Seven Brothers?"

"This red-poison ate them as Otter devours a Fish--bones and all."

"I think the stove is a good thing," decided Black King. "The Man-fire is in a Trap."

"Yes, the Fire-trap is a good thing," concurred his Mother, "if we wish to save the Birds."

"And the Rabbits!" added Lynx.

"And the Berries!" grunted Muskwa.

"The purple Moose-weed grows after fire has eaten the Forest," mused Mooswa; "and if it glows hot and red on one river bank I swim to the other."

"It's all right for you, Long-legs, Pudding-nose, Bob-tail," gibed Whisky-Jack; "but the Law of the Boundaries is for the good of all, and this Fire-trap is a fine thing. I hate to have hot coals falling on my feathers, when the Forest is on fire."

The smoke curled lazily riverward, away from the animals. Suddenly it veered about and the pungent perfume of burning Birch-bark came toward them.

Mooswa straightened his ma.s.sive head, spread the nostrils of his great cushion-shaped nose, c.o.c.ked his thick ears forward intently, and discriminated between the different scents that came floating on the sleepy morning air.

"The fire breath--Wh-e-e!" It tickled a cough in his throat. "The odour of the Half-breed," ugh! he knew that--it was the Man-smell. "But stop! What?" A something out of the long ago crept into his sensitive nostrils and touched his memory. Surely once it had been familiar.

The Boy crossed directly in the wind's path, and Mooswa got it stronger.

Then he knew. His big eyes glistened softly, eagerly; it was the scent of the Lad he had played with in his youth.

"Comrades," he gurgled, for something was in his throat, "have I not told you of the Boy who was the Factor's Young?"

"Whenever you got a chance!" snapped Whisky-Jack.