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Swamp Cat

<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/chap_10.jpg" width-obs="91" height-obs="102" alt="" title="" /></div> <h2>ANDY HUNTS</h2> A north wind, whistling across the swamp, launched a savage attack against Andy's house, broke in half and snarled fiercely around either side. Bearing a scattering of snowflakes, the wind whipped away the thin plume of smoke that curled from the chimney and whirled dry leaves across the yard. A little flock of sparrows that had gone to roost under the eaves fluffed their feathers, huddled close together for warmth and twittered sleepily of the lenient weather that had been. The doe that had tried all summer to get into Andy's garden walked through the open gate and happily crunched cabbage stalks from which the heads had been cut. The doe raised her head. Chewing lustily, she stared into the wind-stirred night. Her ears flicked forward and her eyes were big with interest. Something was coming, but it was nothing to fear. A moment later, a buck came out of the swamp. It was the smaller of the two bucks Frosty had seen when he waited for the deer to frighten mice toward him. There was a bloody welt along his flank and he limped slightly with his right front leg. When the right time came, he had fought the old patriarch for the two does and had been defeated by the bigger, stronger buck. But there was no denying the season or the forces that drove him. The doe came out of the garden, and the pair halted, ten feet apart. Then, with mincing little steps, they closed the distance between them. The buck arched his swollen neck, shook his antlers and pawed the ground. Stepping high, like a parade horse, he danced clear around the doe and nudged her gently. The doe brushed his flank with her black muzzle and, after five minutes, they went into the hills together. The big buck, who would not be averse to adding another wife to his harem, waited in the swamp. High over the swamp, a V-line of wild geese let themselves be tumbled along by the wind. At a signal from their leader, they banked, glided into the swamp and settled in the center of a pond. With morning, when they could see any enemies that might be lurking on the bank, they would go to feed. Three young muskrats, a male and two females, that had been busy cutting reeds and taking them into a roomy burrow, dived in panicky haste when the geese alighted. After a while, screening themselves beneath some frozen rushes that overhung the bank, they came up to see what was happening. When the geese did not make any hostile moves, they resumed cutting and storing reeds. In the middle branches of a tamarack that had shed its needles, a great horned owl ripped at a muskrat which it had plucked from a slough's surface. Another owl, on the way to hunt, floated silently past. Mice stayed deep in their burrows and stirred only when it was necessary to gather seeds to eat. Gophers did not move at all, and rattlesnakes had long since sought winter dens in which the frost could not touch them. As though knowing it was well to eat as much as possible while there was still plenty to be had, a rabbit stuffed itself. A lithe mink that had just swum a slough pointed its snake-like head at the rabbit, stalked, pounced and made a kill. In the house, Andy slept snugly and soundly beneath warm quilts. Frosty was curled beside him. . . . So the night passed. Andy awakened when the first gray light of an autumn morning was just beginning to play with the black windows. His hand stole to Frosty, who pushed a furry head against it and licked his partner's palm with a raspy tongue. For a few extra minutes, Andy listened to the snarling wind and enjoyed the comfort of his bed. He had a sense of well-being which the bitter weather to be served only to intensify. Sometimes alone and sometimes with Frosty—and always carrying his .22, the shells for which were inexpensive—he had been in the swamp every day. More muskrats had been lost and that he knew, but on the whole, they had done better than he thought they could. Prowling every slough and every arm of every slough that he was able to reach and carefully watching every pond, he had found sixty-one different colonies. Each contained at least a pair, for the older muskrats that had lost their mates had traveled until they had found others. Some adults had taken young mates, and some of the older males had fought savagely for theirs. There were colonies which Andy knew definitely contained at least three muskrats, and there was one with five. In addition, and despite the fact that he had searched as thoroughly as he could, there was a distinct possibility that he had not located every colony. Some of the sloughs had so many arms and branches that they were practically water systems within themselves, and some of the branches were hidden by foliage. With luck, there should be at least 200 muskrats by spring, and that was one reason why the north wind sang such a beautiful song. Andy had shot another great horned owl. He had caught another fox and a bobcat, which he knew were raiding his muskrats, and this in a time of plenty, when anything with more than mediocre hunting skill could fill its belly. Now the migratory birds were going or had already gone. Soon mice would be moving beneath snow, rather than grass tunnels. That left little except grouse, which were very wise and very hard to catch; sparrows, chickadees and the few other birds that stayed throughout the winter; and rabbits. However, predators did not migrate. The hungry season, which would bring fierce competition for available food, was just around the corner. But ice-locked ponds and sloughs would protect the muskrats from almost everything. If Andy could see his charges through the next four to six weeks, he should be able to bring most of them safely through the winter. Of course, there was always a possibility of bitter cold that would freeze shallow ponds and sloughs to the bottom. If any water did freeze in such a fashion, muskrats trapped there would starve, merely because they had to be able to move about in order to get food. But most of the colonies were in water deep enough to be safe, regardless of what the weather brought, and only about one winter in ten was very severe. Andy had a sobering thought. No ice would deter Luke Trull, the deadliest predator of all! Andy had expected the fellow to strike before this. Though far from their best, soon pelts would be good enough to command a fair price. However, Luke had not come and Andy hoped he would not. Frosty rose, stretched, leaped lightly to the floor and delivered himself of a querulous call. Andy grinned and sat up in bed. "Time to be moving, huh?" He swung out of bed, padded across the floor, lifted the stove lid, stirred the gray ashes with his lid lifter and dropped dry kindling on hot coals. Fire nibbled anxiously at the kindling, then took a big bite and flame crackled. Andy dressed. He lifted the lid again to add some chunks of wood and looked out the window. The wind still blew hard; but after spitting out just enough snow to dust everything, rolling black clouds had closed their mouths tightly. The thermometer outside the window registered exactly one degree above freezing. Andy cut slices from a slab of bacon and laid them in a skillet. His eyes were questioning and he strained to listen. This first real touch of winter should have brought more than just a north wind; wild geese should have blown in, too. But he could not hear them calling. Frosty looked expectantly at his partner, voiced an imperious command and walked to the door. Andy let him out. Frosty had had no breakfast, but that was nothing to worry about. No longer a kitten but a great cat, he was well able to take care of himself and Andy had long since discovered that, though he made no distinction between young and old, or male and female, he did not kill wantonly. He did take what he wanted to satisfy his hunger, but so did everything else. Andy broke eggs into the skillet and laid two slices of bread on the stove to toast. He was always busy, but during the next six weeks he'd be doubly so. With waterfowl season open, small game season about to open, and deer hunting to follow that, the time had arrived both to enjoy sport and to fill his winter larder. Andy hurried through breakfast and the morning's housework, took a double-barreled twelve gauge shotgun from the gun rack, pulled his boots on and donned a wool jacket. He thrust half a dozen number two shells into his pocket and went into the swamp. He walked fast, paying little attention to the noise he made and making no special effort to conceal himself. Geese were the wariest of game, and only by accident would a flock alight on any accessible pond or slough. They preferred hidden places, deep in the swamp, and long experience had taught Andy where to find waters which the geese liked best. The boy halted to watch a couple of young muskrats that were frantically cutting reeds to store for winter use. He shook his head in wonder. These animals were the offspring of some muskrats he had liberated. They'd never faced a winter in the swamp; they hadn't even lived through a winter, but they still knew enough to cut and store food. How did they know? Andy couldn't explain it, nor could anyone else. Instinct, perhaps, was responsible for part, but Andy had never accepted the theory that instinct is responsible for all a wild creature's actions. If this were true, the muskrats he had planted should have known by instinct that there would be predators about. They'd had to learn, but in learning, they had passed some knowledge on to their offspring. The young were more wary than their parents had been. Maybe, Andy thought, only the fittest of the adults he'd planted had survived. They'd lived because they were smarter or stronger, or perhaps both. It followed that most of the offspring of such parents would be smart and strong too, and thus it became a process of natural selection. He went on and came to a long, wide slough in which the five muskrats lived. Relatively shallow, the slough had a quicksand bottom, and, according to legend, the bones of two men lay somewhere in its depths. They were a Gates and a Trull who had met here, started a hand-to-hand battle and tumbled into the water. In this instance, legend probably was strictly fancy, with no basis in fact. The slough was not deep, but a good swimmer who knew what he was doing might have every chance of crossing it safely. Andy frowned. On the far side of the slough was a high knob. A scattering of brush and scrub aspen grew there, and almost at the very edge of the slough was a huge sycamore with gnarled branches and a hollow trunk. A well-marked path led out of the water into the hollow. Andy's frown deepened. Muskrats had made the path, and if they intended to live in the hollow sycamore, they risked a very precarious situation. Predators could reach them there, but, above and beyond that danger, they'd be locked out of the slough when it froze. Then, even if they did not fall to some fanged or taloned prowler, they'd starve. Muskrats could not live on hard-frozen vegetation. Andy went around the slough, broke his shotgun and extracted the shells, then leaned his weapon against an aspen. He knelt beside the sycamore, but when he sought to support himself with his left hand, he slipped and his arm sank to the elbow in mud. Scrambling hastily to pull himself back, he grimaced at the muddy sleeve, cleaned it as best he could with a handful of rushes and removed his jacket to wring the water out. It was not yet cold enough to make it necessary to start a fire so he might dry out the jacket. The next time he knelt, he braced his left hand against the sycamore before he peered into the gloomy interior. When his eyes became adjusted to the darkness, he saw a burrow at the far end. Satisfied, he rose. The muskrats were not naturally lazy creatures that had chosen to live in the sycamore, rather than dig their own den. They were merely using the hollow as a partial shelter for a surface den, and doubtless there was another exit that led directly into the water. Andy searched until he found it, under an overhanging bank. He caught up his shotgun, reloaded and continued into the swamp. A hundred yards farther on, a young deer, a spring-born fawn, looked steadily at him, twitched long ears, stamped a nervous hoof, then hoisted a white tail and bounded into the swamp. It was followed by two more fawns, which, in turn, were trailed by a pair of adult does. Andy stood perfectly still. At this season, a buck should be with the does and he wanted to locate the buck. After a moment, he saw what he was looking for. Off in the swamp grass was the barest ripple of motion, a phantom thing that at first seemed not even to exist. It was the craggy-horned old patriarch, the same beast that Frosty had seen and that, later, had driven his smaller rival away. Too smart to show himself in any open space, the old buck was sneaking, almost unseen, through grass that was tall enough to cover his back. But he had forgotten about his antlers, and now and again they showed. Andy watched closely until the old buck was out of sight. Every year, if for nothing except for winter meat, a buck was a necessity and this was far and away the biggest in the swamp. But he was also by far the wisest. Andy had hunted him for the past three seasons and had managed only a couple of snap shots at him. The old buck refused to be driven from the swamp, and he was acquainted with every inch of that. He never panicked, seldom made an unwise move, and he knew all about hunters with firearms. Andy bent his head against the wind and walked on. Four weeks would bring another deer season and he intended to spend at least the first half of it matching wits with the old patriarch. If he couldn't get him, he'd take a smaller buck. He looked again at the rolling black clouds. He had heard no geese nor had he seen any, but it was goose weather and they should be down. Nearing the slough where he hoped to find them, Andy crouched so that his head was below the tops of the swamp grass. He knew the game he sought. Not even the old buck was warier or harder to approach. When the boy saw the tops of some tamaracks that flanked the slough, he held the shotgun in his right hand and crawled. He advanced with almost painful slowness. A suspicious sound could warn geese as swiftly as an enemy in sight. The last twenty yards Andy wriggled on his stomach. He looked through a fringe of swamp grass at the slough. More than twenty geese swam on it, but the sentry they'd posted had become suspicious and had alerted the others. Positive that the geese had not seen him, and until now equally certain that they had not heard him, Andy grinned his appreciation. He must have made some sound which possibly nothing except a wild goose could have detected, but his stalk was successful. Well within range, all he had to do was stand up and get two of the flock when they took to the air. Then his glance strayed across the slough and he muttered under his breath. One on a lower branch and one on an upper, two great horned owls sat in the same tamarack. Andy muttered again. Within easy range of wild geese, he might have at least two. But choosing them meant letting the owls go, and if he did, he might very well pay for his choice with a dozen or more muskrats. Andy sighed. He leveled his shotgun, sighted on the topmost owl and squeezed the trigger. Almost before the booming report died, he got the second owl with the other barrel. In a frantic haste, he ejected the two empty shells and slipped fresh ones in, but with a great flapping of wings, the geese were already airborne. Andy sighed again and watched them go. He still might shoot, but he could no longer be certain of a kill and it was far better to let the geese escape than to wound one. Andy turned dejectedly away from the slough. His swamp was not on one of the great flyways, down or up which, according to the season, waterfowl stream. Only the strays alighted here, and some seasons they were very few. The boy shrugged and walked on. The two geese he had hoped to get would have provided his Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners—and several more besides. But the great horned owls were far too dangerous to be tolerated. Andy longed for the freeze—up that would make his muskrats safe. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> The next day, on a different slough, Andy bagged two mallards out of a flock that beat hastily into the air before him, and the day after that he got two more. He plucked and dressed the ducks, wrapped each separately in flour sacking and hung it in his shed to freeze. These were the last of the waterfowl. If more came, he missed them. The weather, never very cold or very warm, dropped to a few degrees below freezing every night and climbed a few degrees above it every day. There were some more snow flurries and brittle shell ice formed on the edges of some ponds and sloughs. But, except in places that were shadowed all day long, both snow and ice melted under the noon sun. Andy made ready for the trapping and small game season. An hour before dawn on opening day, he had breakfasted. He let Frosty out, and with the shotgun under his arm, started off. His way led him into the hills, rather than the swamp, for this morning he intended to set fox traps and there were more foxes in the hills. Black night was just shading into gray dawn when he threaded his path among a copse of scrub oak toward a huge stump that had supported a great pine but that was now a melancholy, moss- and lichen-covered relic. Andy pawed aside some dead leaves that seemed to have blown into the stump and revealed his fox traps. Along with a packsack, leather trapping gloves, a roll of canvas, a bottle of scent, trap stakes and even the hatchet used to drive the stakes, they had been in the stump all summer and no trace of human scent could possibly cling to them. Before doing anything else, Andy slipped his hands into the gloves. Being careful to touch them with nothing except the gloves, he put eight traps, eight stakes, the roll of canvas, the hatchet and the bottle of scent into the packsack and shouldered it. The hills were cut with numerous tote roads over which, at one time, wagons loaded with timber had traveled. Though some were brush-grown, most such roads remained open enough so that foxes en route from one place to another traveled them. Approaching such a road, Andy stopped. He unrolled his strip of canvas, walking on it as he did so. When he came to the middle of the road, he knelt to study the ground carefully. After he was sure he had memorized every tiny detail, he used the hatchet's blade to scoop a hole just big enough to hide a set trap. The surplus earth he scattered to either side. He started a stake through the trap ring and kept pounding until the top of the stake was level with its surroundings. Then he replaced every leaf and every blade of grass exactly as it had been. Andy took the bottle of scent from his pack, uncorked it and grimaced. The scent was a nauseous substance, composed of exactly measured portions of thoroughly rotted fish; the castor, or scent glands, of beaver; oil of asafetida and oil of wintergreen. Its odor would shame the most formidable skunk, but foxes found it irresistible! Andy put one drop on his set trap and, rolling up his canvas as he did so, walked backwards. In like manner, he set seven more fox traps. He hurried back toward the house, for he wanted to spend the afternoon in his swamp, but when a fat rabbit with a flashing white tail scooted before him, he shot it. He collected four more rabbits, the bag limit for one day. However, the possession limit was ten and rabbits were plentiful. If he froze these five and four more, he would still have one under the possession limit and, whenever he felt so inclined, he would be entitled to shoot a rabbit for his dinner. Andy skinned and dressed his rabbits and hung them in the shed. After a hurried lunch, he exchanged his packs for boots and went into the swamp with mink traps. After reading sign in the few snows that had lingered after sunup, he had determined that there were sixteen mink in the swamp. If he took ten, there would still be enough to perform the necessary functions of such predators, such as catching sick rabbits that would otherwise spread disease and restocking the swamp next year. Andy waded a winding little watercourse. He knew mink as inquisitive creatures that will investigate and, if possible, squeeze into every crack and crevice along their line of travel. On this knowledge he had based his plan for trapping mink without catching any muskrats, which also might travel the waterways. He set his traps at places which mink would investigate but muskrats were likely to avoid, and he baited each with a tiny bit of scent from the scent glands of mink trapped last year. On the way home, he shot two grouse and added them to his collection in the shed. Thereafter, while the weather became neither very cold nor unduly warm, Andy went into the hills every morning and into the swamp every afternoon. He added lustrous fox pelts to his cache in the fur shed, took the ten mink he wanted to catch in eight days and worried because the winter freeze was late. However, neither Luke Trull nor any extraordinary wave of natural predators had as yet attacked the muskrat colonies. The night before deer season opened, Andy took his 30-30 from its rack and looked through the spotless bore. He put the rifle to his shoulder, squinted over the sights, and in imagination he was actually sighting on the great swamp buck. The next morning, he set out on what he was sure would be the hardest hunt of his life. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> At first Frosty was puzzled by and resentful of the strange madness that had suddenly come over his partner. He had gone once with Andy into the swamp and once into the hills, and each time his companion had used his shotgun. Though Frosty did not mind the snap of a .22, the blast of this great weapon was a tremendous shock to feline nerves. After the first discharge, he'd hoped that Andy would never fire the shotgun again. After the second, he decided definitely that he would not be around if it were shot off any more. Thereafter, when Andy carried the shotgun, and he carried it every day, Frosty took himself elsewhere. Angry at first, feline philosophy came to Frosty's aid. It was decidedly a madness—anyone who would make such a noise had to be insane—but sooner or later Andy would regain his senses and they could take up their companionship where it had been broken off. Frosty roamed the swamp, going where he wished and doing as he pleased, for he was very sure of himself and his own powers now. The night before deer season opened, he fed heartily on a rabbit, slept in a hollow log . . . and resumed prowling. Just before daylight, he came upon the big buck. The fawns had long since been driven away to shift for themselves and one of the does had gone of her own free will. When the patriarch approached the remaining doe, she slashed viciously at him with a front hoof and ran a few steps. The second time he came near, she slashed again and disappeared in the swamp grass. Still in the grip of the rutting season's urge, the angry buck scraped the ground with his antlers. Frosty watched with interest. He had never met his superior. Except for Andy, he had never even met his equal, so he understood this enraged beast. The cat soft-footed to an aspen that grew in front of a ledge of rocks and gauged the exact distance to a crevice beneath the ledge. Then he deliberately showed himself. At once the buck charged. Frosty scrambled up the aspen and looked down contemptuously as the great creature raked the tree with his antlers, snorted and fell to scraping the earth with a front hoof. He reared—a move Frosty had anticipated—and the black cat dug his nose with a single lightning-like thrust of his paw. Then he leaped out of the tree and, with the buck pounding behind him, dodged into the crevice. Snorting and puffing, the buck stamped angrily back and forth. He stopped and tried to edge an antler into the crevice. When his nose came near enough, Frosty scratched it again. The buck, all fury, thought only of reaching and killing this insignificant thing that had dared defy him. For a time Frosty amused himself by scratching the patriarch's nose every time it came within reach. Then he withdrew to the rear of the crevice and went to sleep. The buck could not reach him, and while the furious beast stood guard, nothing else would try. Frosty slept peacefully, wholly at ease. Daylight had bloomed when he was awakened by footsteps. From their rhythm and cadence, he knew they were Andy's. The cat waited. He'd be happy to meet his partner again, providing Andy had left the shotgun home. Then came a blast that outdid even the shotgun's and Frosty crouched very quietly in his crevice. Andy was still mad, the cat decided, for he was still going about making noises that could not possibly be tolerated by anything in its right mind. However, the buck had hit the ground very hard and very suddenly, and now it lay very still. Frosty heard Andy's amazed, "I'll be dog-goned! Hunt this buck for three years and then stumble right over him! Wonder how he got his nose dug that way?" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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