Swamp Cat Part 4

Late in the afternoon, Andy started back into the swamp to see how his charges were doing.

The pair he'd left in Dead Man's Slough were busy making themselves a house. When Andy approached, they swam cautiously to a clump of reeds and lurked near them. Studying him with watchful eyes, they swam in little circles. When he made a sudden move, they dived. Satisfied, Andy went on. These two were at least beginning to suspect that all callers wouldn't necessarily be friendly.

The second pair, the naturally cautious ones, were not in sight when Andy approached the slough where he'd left them. But dimly beneath the water he saw the entrance to a den. No doubt the muskrats were in it.

Andy came to the third slough just in time to see a clean-limbed gray fox, a muskrat dangling limply from his jaws, trotting away from it.

Andy muttered under his breath. He hadn't brought a gun because, though he'd known that predators might be raiding his muskrats, he hadn't expected to catch any in the act. But from now on he must always be armed and definitely he would have to eliminate this particular fox.

Having learned that it could catch muskrats, it might hunt them constantly and conceivably could catch all twelve.

Returning to his house, Andy took two fox traps and a bottle of fox scent from his storage room. Slipping the bottle into his pocket and taking the traps in one hand and his repeating .22 rifle in the other, he went back to the slough. He tied a flat stone to the pan of each trap, waded into the slough and set the traps so that only the stone protruded above water. Then he cut two willow withes and dipped one end of each into his bottle of fox scent. Eighteen inches from his traps, he thrust them into the mud until only the scented ends protruded. It was an old and effective trapper's trick, based on a fox's dislike of getting wet. Excited by the tantalizing scent and wanting to get close to it, the fox would use the stone on the trap pan as an effective means of so doing and, of course, spring the trap.

Twilight fell, and, in the gathering gloom of early evening, Andy hurried to the next slough. He halted in his tracks and muttered angrily. On a patch of smooth gra.s.s, five feet from the water's edge, lay the gnawed head and naked, scaley tail of a muskrat. There was no track or sign to show what had caught it, but clinging to a nearby reed, Andy found a cottony puff of fur from a bobcat. He muttered again.

It was too dark to go to the house for more traps, but it would be well to have some waiting here. The killer, probably a bobcat, knew of the other muskrat and would return to get it.

Andy trotted toward the next and last slough and found both muskrats swimming placidly. A split second later, a great horned owl dipped out of the sky, plucked one of the swimming animals from the water and floated away with its victim in its talons.

It happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly that Andy needed a moment to realize it had happened at all. It was like watching a peaceful scene in which a bomb is suddenly exploded. Uncannily silent wings giving not the slightest hint of his approach, the owl was not there, then he was, then he was gone. So perfectly timed and executed was the maneuver that it was carried through from start to finish without the owl's ruffling a single feather or missing one beat of his wings. It was a master feat by a master craftsman.

Leveling his rifle, sighting as best he could in the uncertain light, Andy snapped a shot after the fleeing owl. He shot a second time, a third, and watched the bird fly out of sight. When he lowered the rifle, there was dread in his heart.

He had hoped that, in time, his muskrats would come to know and learn to avoid land prowlers, such as foxes and bobcats. But there was not and couldn't possibly be any defense against raiding great horned owls. The wariest muskrat would never hear them coming and, nine times out of ten, would never see them. They were destruction itself, death in its most efficient form. A very few of them, hunting the swamp regularly, could make it impossible ever to raise muskrats there.

Andy made up his mind. No believer in the unnecessary destruction of anything at all, he must defend that which was his. The only possible course lay in keeping the swamp as free of great horned owls as he could.

Somewhat dejectedly, he made his way back to the house. Turning his swamp into a muskrat farm had seemed like a grand dream, but maybe it could never be anything except a dream. He had expected to lose some, but the first day was not yet ended and he'd lost a quarter of all the muskrats liberated. If casualties kept up at this rate, he'd have none left in another three days.

The next morning, carrying more traps and armed with his .22, he went back into the swamp. Pa.s.sing Dead Man's Slough, he sighed in relief to discover that the two muskrats he had left there were safe. The second pair, the cautious ones, were not in sight but a partly finished house was evidence that they were still in the slough. Why they wanted a house when they already had a den was puzzling, but Andy supposed they had their own reasons.

Approaching the third slough, the one from which the fox had taken the muskrat, Andy halted and stood quietly.

A leaning log angled from the bank into the slough, and the surviving muskrat sat on it, shucking a fresh-water mussel. It bit through the tough mechanism that clamped the sh.e.l.l, scooped out and ate the tender flesh within, let the sh.e.l.l fall into the water and dived for another mussel.

The gray fox that had caught the first muskrat had come back for the second one. He was lying motionless on the bank. As soon as the muskrat dived, the fox rose, paced forward and, a split second before the muskrat's head broke water, went into another crouch.

Slowly, making no swift move that would call attention to himself, Andy raised and sighted his rifle. But he did not shoot because he was interested.

The fox, evidently a young one that had not yet learned that it pays to look in all directions all the time, was so intent on the muskrat that it paid no attention to anything else. The muskrat climbed out on the log, ate his mussel and dived for another one. The fox rose, paced forward, and threw himself down again.

Crouching, he seemed a part of the gra.s.s and Andy could not help admiring both his plan and the way he was putting it into effect. He continued to hold his fire because here was a chance to learn exactly how foxes catch muskrats and such knowledge might very well be useful.

The muskrat reappeared, climbed on the log . . . and the fox leaped.

He should have pinned his quarry, but something warned the muskrat and the fox was still in the air when it rolled off the log and dived.

Struggling wildly, the fox splashed water with his front paws and fought desperately to get back onto the bank. He could not.

The bottom of this slough was stony for the most part, but just off the bank from which the fox had leaped was more quicksand and the animal was hopelessly enmeshed in it. He made a mighty effort to hold his nose out of water and Andy's shot caught him in the head just before he went down. It was by far the kindest thing to do.

Andy was surprised and pleased when the day pa.s.sed and he lost no more muskrats. He was mystified when a whole week went by with no further losses. Then the answer occurred to him. Muskrats, like everything else, produce their quota of fools, and two of the three that had died the first day probably belonged in that category. The third, the one taken by the great horned owl, had been just plain unlucky.

Andy caught a young bobcat, picked up his traps . . . and in three days lost the two muskrats in Dead Man's Slough and the one whose mate had been killed by the bobcat! There were neither tracks nor any other sign to identify the raider, but on one of the high k.n.o.bs Andy found him.

It was another great horned owl that sat quietly in a gnarled oak, with his tufted ears silhouetted against the sky and his eyes closed against the sun's glare. Andy's shot caught him squarely, and he flapped his wings just once as he toppled from the perch.

Leaving him where he fell, Andy went ruefully home. It was very evident that muskrat farming was somewhat less than the ideal way to get rich quick. Of his original stock of twelve, he had exactly six left. They were the pair in front of his house, the cautious pair, and two singles.

Not too much could be expected from them, and Andy thought of his lean bank balance. To buy more muskrats for predators to kill fell short of wise investment.

Dejectedly Andy went to the slough in front of his house and sat with his arms clasping his knees. The male muskrat came up to stare haughtily at him and Andy stared defiantly back.

"All right!" he invited. "Go ahead and look!"

The muskrat--Andy had whimsically named the pair Four-Leaf and Clover--made a lazy circle and turned to fix unblinking eyes on the boy.

Andy grimaced. At no time had he exerted the slightest effort to make pets of any of his charges because it was better to have them wild. But Four-Leaf and Clover, living so near and visited so frequently, were on familiar terms with him. He had an uncomfortable feeling that they were not on equal terms. Four-Leaf and Clover considered themselves vastly superior to any mere human being!

"If you don't wipe that sneer off your face," Andy threatened, "I'll turn you into a genuine muskrat-hide glove!"

He picked up a pebble and was about to plunk it into the water near Four-Leaf when Clover's head broke water. Behind her, in formation so precise that they seemed to have drilled for it, came an even dozen small copies of herself. Andy dropped the pebble and a broad smile lighted his face.

"Glory be! Darned if we'uns haven't got ourselves some babies!"

His dejection melted like mist before the rising sun. Happily he pulled on his boots and went into the swamp. He'd lost half his original stock and still had six more muskrats than he'd started with. Reaching the slough where the cautious pair lived, Andy crouched quietly in the gra.s.s beside it.

A half hour later, they appeared with ten babies, and when Andy pa.s.sed the sloughs inhabited by lone muskrats whose mates had been killed, he was amazed to find each of them with eight young. Obviously, both females had survived.

Jubilantly, Andy threw his hat into the air, and when he reached home he went carefully over his plans for the future. If he forgot about the new rifle he had intended to give himself for Christmas and made his old clothes last a while longer, he could buy twenty more mated pairs. The next morning he walked into town and mailed his order.

A week later, while patrolling the swamp to inspect his various colonies of muskrats, Andy saw a great horned owl flying low over the gra.s.s with what appeared to be a black muskrat in its talons. Suddenly the victim twisted about to attack its captor.

When they came nearer, Andy saw, to his vast astonishment, that the supposed muskrat was a black kitten!

4

FEATHERED DEATH

His stomach filled with gra.s.shoppers, Frosty went to one of several large pine stumps that were spotted here and there about the meadow and crawled beneath an out-jutting root, from the under side of which the earth had crumbled away. He lay perfectly still and went to sleep.

Aside from Luke Trull and the coyote, he knew nothing of the enemies he might find in these wild uplands. However, there were sure to be some, and certainly he would be much harder to find beneath the root than he would if he merely lay down on some gra.s.sy bed. But he was incapable of sodden slumber.

A part of him that never slept was aware of wind rippling the gra.s.s; the furtive rustlings and sc.r.a.pings of a family of mice that dwelt in a tiny burrow beneath the same root; the chattering of a blue jay that, having nothing to scold, was scolding anyhow. Frosty eased into wakefulness.

He knew the wind and he knew the mice, but not the jay and he must know it. Without seeming to move, he edged far enough around the root so he could see the bird. It was perched on another stump, flitting its wings, flicking its tail, ducking its head and scolding. Frosty studied it for a second, and by the time he went back to sleep it was a.s.sured that, for as long as he lived, he would a.s.sociate the sound with the beautiful bird that made it and the bird with the sound. He had learned something else. Never again, if he heard a blue jay screech, would he have to waken and look for it.

He thought of the shed from which Luke Trull had taken him, but not with any feeling of nostalgia or homesickness because the shed belonged to yesterday. That was there and he was here, and even if he wished to do so, he would be unable to find it again. Nor, aside from the fact that he wanted to stay in or very near the meadow, did he have any plans.