Swamp Cat Part 3

If the coyote could get in, he'd be here. All these indisputable elements added up to the fact that, at least temporarily, Frosty was safe.

He crouched watchfully, not afraid of the coyote but not foolish enough to engage in a battle that he did not have to fight. He was no match for the creature, he knew it, and since there didn't seem to be anything he could do right now, he did nothing.

After a moment, the coyote went away. No fool, he was perfectly aware of the fact that he might growl and scratch at the hole all night and still not reach the black kitten. He paused long enough to eat the two gray kittens and padded away on silent paws.

Frosty stayed where he was for another twenty minutes. When he finally moved, he went only to the entrance of the hollow and lingered there for five minutes more. He thought the coyote had gone but he wanted to be sure, and only when he was sure did he drop out of the hollow onto the ground.

He went into a half-crouch, tail curled against his flank and tense muscles ready to carry him wherever circ.u.mstance indicated he should go.

This was a wholly unfamiliar world, one in which he'd have to feel every inch of his way. The least wrong move could bring disaster. Finally, eyes and ears alert, he moved softly as a shadow.

Frosty paused beside the limp gunny sack. He touched it with an extended nose, then glided cautiously around it. There was nothing to indicate that the sack was dangerous, but it had trapped him once and might again. Save for scent that still lingered on the sack, there was nothing whatever to indicate that the two gray kittens had ever been.

Knowing that he must do something, but with no clear idea of what that might be or where he should go, Frosty started into the night. He halted suddenly, warned more by deep-seated instinct than anything he could see or hear, and stood quietly under a bush. A moment later, he saw a big bird, a cruising great horned owl, pa.s.s overhead. Frosty stayed where he was for ten minutes. He knew only that he must be cautious. He could not know that the owl was hunting, and that a tender young kitten would be as acceptable as anything else.

A half-hour later, Frosty came to a streamlet, one of many that pursued their winding courses across the mountain, tumbled down it and finally poured their waters into a river. He crouched full-length and lapped water with a dainty pink tongue. . . . The kitten licked his chops, waited a bit, then drank again.

His thirst satisfied, he attended to every cat's implicit duty. Sitting down, he washed himself thoroughly with his tongue and used his front paws to groom that part of his fur which his tongue would not reach.

He licked his chops once more, smoothed his whiskers and wandered on. He struck at and missed a mouse that rustled the gra.s.s in front of him and watched, wide-eyed with wonder, when a rabbit bounded away. He missed another mouse and fluffed his fur and spat when a hunting fox rippled past.

Dawn found him in a gra.s.sy meadow. Little tendrils of moisture curled upward from dew-wet gra.s.s and a thin blanket of mist overhung the meadow. When something moved sluggishly in front of him, Frosty sprang to pin it down. His prize was a fat gra.s.shopper, too torpid with morning cold to move swiftly. The kitten's tail lashed back and forth. He looked intently at this, the first catch he had ever made. Then he ate it and found it good.

Casting back and forth across the meadow, Frosty caught and ate gra.s.shoppers until his stomach would hold no more.

3

THE FIRST PLANTING

Strapped on a pack board borrowed from the express agent, the six crates were neither a heavy nor a clumsy burden. Each box was divided by a part.i.tion, with a muskrat at either end. Andy had specified that they be shipped in such a fashion because he wanted to be sure of mated pairs and he also wanted to be certain of forestalling domestic arguments among his charges. It was entirely possible that a male and female muskrat, regardless of how long they'd been mated, might start exercising their formidable cutting teeth on each other if put together in the same small crate. Now and again, there came a sc.r.a.ping of claws as one of the muskrats, unbalanced by a twist or turn, slid across the wooden floor of its prison.

As he carried his new acquisitions up the dark mountain, Andy pondered.

Muskrats, his research had taught him, are almost entirely aquatic creatures, though occasionally they make overland journeys. Their food consists of aquatic plants, tender roots and bulbs, and they are very fond of fresh-water mussels. They construct houses of mud mixed with plant stalks or dig burrows in the bank. The entrance to either type of dwelling is always under water. They store food but remain active under the ice all winter long.

Very prolific, they produce from two to five litters a year, with from four to as many as a dozen young in each litter. There is a reason for this. Muskrats, like rabbits, are the prey of numerous things that walk, crawl or fly. They counterbalance heavy casualties with large and frequent families. Some naturalists claim that, by the end of the first summer, the earliest young born will rear families of their own. Others declare that no young breed until the spring following their birth.

Because this was at best an uncertain experiment and Andy could have no idea as to how it would work out, he had chosen six mated pairs. His plan was to release them in six different parts of the swamp and see where they flourished best. After he had a better idea of what he was doing, he could buy more breeding stock--but there was still one great worry.

These muskrats had been reared in a large pond where, insofar as they had had to find their own food, build their own houses and dig their own burrows and tunnels, conditions were approximately the same as would have been encountered in the wilderness. However, it was a fenced pond and a carefully patrolled one. There had been no predators to keep them alert, whereas the swamp was filled with sudden death in many forms.

Would pen-raised muskrats be able to survive the unfamiliar perils?

Andy carried his captives into the house, unbuckled the straps that held their pens on his shoulders and eased them gently to the floor. He then separated the crates so that there was s.p.a.ce between them. The animals emitted an offensive odor, but this was only because they had been in the tiny boxes so long. They'd cleanse themselves after they had room in which to do it. Unless they are sick, few animals will tolerate uncleanliness.

Andy grimaced. It was less than an alluring prospect to have the muskrats in his house all night, and, other things being equal, they'd be perfectly all right on the porch. But the battle had already started.

If they were left outside, a prowling mink might well happen along and put an end to all twelve. It was wiser to endure the odor overnight and keep his charges safe.

Andy slept well, nevertheless. He was up and had breakfasted with the first hint of dawn. Kicking off his slippers, he pulled rubber boots over his trousers. The sun was just rising when, with five crates of muskrats back on the pack board--the sixth he intended to release in the watery slough directly in front of his house--he started out.

His step was light and his heart happy, as it always was when he went into the swamp. It was to Andy what his mountains are to the born mountaineer; his rolling prairie to the confirmed plainsman; his sun-scorched hills and forbidding acres of cactus to the desert lover.

The swamp was grim and Andy knew it. But it was also beautiful and he saw its beauty. As no other place could ever be, it was home.

He wended his way around the watery slough. Swamp gra.s.ses, each one of which bore myriad seeds as delicate as fairy dust, brushed against him as he walked. Beneath his feet, the earth trembled. There were firm areas in the swamp, rocky places and high knolls where the green trees grew. But much of that which was not given over to surface water was a huge, floating island, undermined by water. In numerous places, it was possible to stand on gra.s.s, punch a hole through to the water below, lower a baited hook and pull out a wriggling perch.

Andy walked swiftly and confidently, for he knew exactly where he was going. When he came to a long slough that varied between a foot and five feet in depth, he plunged unhesitatingly in and waded across without a thought for the death that lurked on either side. This was Dead Man's Slough. Across the center, where Andy had walked, extended a solid path which at no point was more than twenty inches wide. To step off that was to step into bottomless quicksand.

According to legend, an armed party of Trulls and Casmans, in close pursuit of Bije Gates, had turned back at Dead Man's Slough. Leading, Arvin Casman had stepped off the path and disappeared before his friends could help him. His bones were still in the quicksand. Andy didn't know and he didn't much care whether this tale was true. The feud was long over, a thing of the past, and sleeping dogs were better left alone. But it was a foregone conclusion that, if Arvin Casman or anyone else had stepped into Dead Man's Slough, his bones were still there.

At the far side of the slough, Andy turned left along its weed-lined sh.o.r.e, lowered his load to the ground, gently unfastened the wire that fastened one of the part.i.tions shut and opened the door. A cautious brown nose was thrust forth and immediately withdrawn. The muskrat in the part.i.tion crouched nervously. Now and again there came the sound of a sc.r.a.ping paw.

Puzzled, Andy frowned. Then suddenly he understood.

He had a.s.sumed that, after their long imprisonment in the tiny cages, the animals would be wild for freedom. However, they had been uprooted from safe and comfortable homes, endured a long and nerve-wracking journey, seen sights and heard sounds that must have been terrifying, and, through all this, they had stayed safe in their cages. It was small wonder that they were reluctant to leave. Andy tilted the box and spilled both its occupants into the water.

They went down, came up gasping and, for a short s.p.a.ce, swam in a frenzied, meaningless fashion. Then their sudden fright pa.s.sed. The nightmare was behind them. They were back in the water and muskrats are born for water. They began to enjoy themselves.

For the sheer luxury of so doing, they dived. Though they must have come within a hair's breadth of the bottom, they were such expert swimmers that they dislodged not even one fleck of mud. Forty feet away, they surfaced and played with each other for a moment. Somewhat clumsy on land, but incredibly graceful in the water, they swam around and around in the slough and regarded Andy with beady little black eyes.

Andy worried, for this was what he had feared most. Animals acquainted with danger would never expose themselves so recklessly. He threw pebbles at them, but though they dived when the pebbles splashed near, they surfaced again almost at once. Finally they swam to the weed-grown bank and began to eat ravenously.

Andy left them and went on. Throwing pebbles at this freshly liberated pair all day long, or all week long, would teach them nothing except how to dodge pebbles. If they were to survive in the swamp, they'd have to do so through their own instincts and intelligence, plus, probably, a great deal of luck.

Andy released his remaining pairs of muskrats at scattered points and returned the way he had come, to pick up the empty crates. Without so much as a glance for him, four of the five pairs he had freed were calmly eating the tender young shoots of marsh weeds or digging in the mud for bulbs. The remaining pair, the second he had liberated, dived hastily beneath an overhanging bank and refused to show themselves again. Andy began to have hopes. Perhaps it would not take the animals as long as he had thought it would to learn caution. Or maybe this pair was just naturally cautious. If they were, and remained that way, they stood a good chance of surviving.

Reaching home, Andy took his sixth and final pair of muskrats down to the watery slough in front of his house. He had deliberately saved them until last because he wanted to study at some length just how they reacted when released and just what they did.

Andy carried the crate to the water's edge, opened the door and jumped just in time. The first five pairs had huddled in their crates until spilled out, but these two had both ideas of their own and a grudge against the human race. As soon as the crate was opened, the two rushed Andy. Bristled, clicking their teeth, they pursued him for five yards.

Then, as though discussing the situation between themselves, they clicked their teeth at each other and, in no hurry at all, turned back to the slough.

Andy grinned his appreciation. Together, the two muskrats weighed perhaps five pounds. He weighed a hundred and seventy. But they hadn't hesitated to charge him when they thought circ.u.mstances warranted it; there was nothing wrong with their courage. Andy watched them closely.

Still unhurried, and obviously with no intention of hurrying, the pair waddled back to the crate and inspected it thoroughly. Then they went into the water and their delight knew no bounds. They dived. Surfacing, they swam about for the sheer joy of swimming, then dived again. For a few minutes they occupied themselves eating swamp growth. Then they submerged beneath an embankment and a cloud of mud stained the water.

Evidently this pair intended to lose no time in setting up housekeeping; the cloud of mud could mean only that they were excavating a burrow. The underwater entrance would lead upward into the bank.

One of the pair--it was hard to distinguish between them but Andy thought it was the male--came up for a hasty look around and promptly dived again. Muddy water continued to flow out from beneath the bank.

Andy went to his house for a bite of lunch and when he returned to the slough the muskrats were still submerged. He grinned smugly. Obviously this particular pair of muskrats needed a den in a hurry and there could be only one reason for such a rush. A family was already on its way.

There was motion on the opposite side of the slough and a lithe brown mink appeared in the rushes there. It stood still, one paw raised like a pointing dog's and serpent-like head extended. After a moment, it slithered back into the rushes and disappeared. Andy frowned.

Mink are savage creatures, and now this one knew of the muskrats'

presence. It had made no effort to investigate closely, either because it had just fed and wasn't hungry or because it had other game in mind.

But it might have marked the muskrats as a possible future dinner and mink were almost the only predator able to follow a muskrat into its den.

Though they preferred peace, muskrats could fight savagely and they had the courage to fight. If there were easier game available, a mink might very well choose it rather than risk a battle. But a hunger-driven mink would never reckon the odds and unless it was very lucky, no muskrat could defeat or escape from one.

This presented a serious problem. Furs provided an important part of Andy's income. If he trapped the mink now, instead of waiting for cold weather to bring prime furs, he'd get nothing for it. But if the mink started killing his muskrats, he'd have to trap it. Mink were one of the many things he'd have to watch closely.