Two on the Trail: A Story of Canada Snows

by Madeline Brandeis

  CHAPTER VII

  A MIDNIGHT BATTLE

  For perhaps three minutes the two creatures spat and screamed at eachother. David awakened, uncovered his face cautiously and gazed aboutwith interest. Then he murmured:

  "I say, Nell, just look!"

  "I know," her voice was equally low pitched.

  "What'll they do?"

  "Oh, run away. The cat won't fight the lynx."

  "Is it a lynx? Snakes, what a row! I say, Nell, that cat yells like aslate pencil with a bit of wire in it screaming down a slate. Doesn'tit make your teeth feel gritty?" he giggled.

  "Hush," warned Nell.

  "They don't hear, they are jolly busy. Oh, I _say_!"

  This last "I say" was caused by a new movement on the part of the lynx.It was very hungry, and had no intention of letting that rabbit be eatenby a mere wild cat if anything could be gained by interfering!Evidently it ran or jumped from the rock top to the snow barrier, forthe two malevolent green eyes suddenly glared palely from the bank.Then Nell saw the dark crouching shape run round on to the upturnedsled. She was sure now it was a lynx, she could distinguish the heavy,powerful hind legs and the bob tail, then in a moment, right across thefaint glow of the fire, the flat, wicked face with the tufted ears laidback.

  But the great wild cat held on to the rabbit. There was no time to eat,but it would not run, as, of course, the lynx expected. They areterrible creatures and will fight almost anything that does fight in theforest. Their teeth, and the knife-like talons on their powerful hindlegs make them dangerous everywhere. Nell wished the cat would run andbe done with it all. She put out her hand to the wood pile, meaning tothrow some sticks on the fire that glowed dully between them and thesedangerous neighbours, when David saw what she intended and urged her notto.

  "Don't, Nell, it'll send them off with one jump. Do let's see whatthey'll do!"

  "But, Da----"

  "Oh, I know they are awful brutes, but we've never had a chance ofseeing a catamount stand up to a lynx. Do wait!"

  Nell gave in. All the same, she was not sure it was wise, and she kepta bunch of sticks in her hand ready to beat on the smoulder of the firewith them and so drive about a shower of sparks, supposing the fightersbecame too unpleasant.

  Robin was uneasy, but he remained as before, just watchful. Both Nelland David knew that he would fight a wolf, but not a lynx--not if hecould possibly get out of it, anyway.

  The wild cat was drawn up into a hoop, looking like a picture of a hugewitch cat. It was a picture, too, of rage indescribable, one pawholding down the rabbit, one lifted, as it screeched at the crouchinglynx on the top of the sled. Every tooth in its stretched, open mouthwas bare, and its ears lay flat and close. The face of the lynx was likea wicked mask in front of its hunched-up body.

  Then, in a second the suspense was over, and the noise that followed waslike nothing Nell had ever heard in all her years of forest life. Thesilence of the woods seemed to be split and shaken by the hideous yowlsand screeches of the furious beasts as they struggled for a mastery.Most people have heard two cats fight. If that can be imagined at leasttwenty times worse, and in the profound stillness of winter night in asnow-laden forest, that is what the girl and boy heard.

  The bodies of the two wild creatures rolled, bounded, and spun in oneraging ball. No one could have told which was which.

  David scrambled to his feet, bag and all, and leaned against the rockwatching, too intent to notice Nell's actions. She did what she hadwanted to do in the first place, threw a handful of dried sticks on thetwinkling red ashes. Amongst the sticks were some dead birch saplings.These burst into a flame almost on the instant, and a rush of cracklinglight streamed up into the air, making the tree boles look pink, likethe rosy tinted snow.

  In that same instant Nell saw that the cat was uppermost, with teethfastened in the face of the lynx. He would not give way, but the lynxwas killing him by terrible strokes of those razor-like claws which werelashing at the soft underpart of the catamount's body.

  This she saw in a sort of instantaneous vision. Then the leaping flamedid its work. With one spasmodic movement the mad beasts fell apart.The lynx ran away, crouching close to the snow, with a curious hunchedmovement of his strong hind legs, and the great cat disappeared in twobounds, leaving a trail of dark stains on the snow. He was shockinglyhurt.

  "Oh, I say, why _did_ you, Nell?" cried David.

  "I wasn't going to have the catamount killed," said his sister firmly."I loathe lynxes. Their faces are as wicked as demons. I believe theyare demons."

  "Cats are pretty well as bad. It was a catamount that bit Dad, Stensonsaid."

  "It was in a trap," Nell excused the cat briskly. "Of course they'resavage, they are wild animals, but I didn't want that lynx to triumph.Who got the rabbit? It was the cat's own rabbit."

  "Poor rabbit," said David.

  Then they both laughed. It was such a very mad sort of scene, as Nellsaid.

  David walked round the fire cautiously and found the rabbit. There itwas, left on the battered battlefield. He picked it up gingerly.

  "If we knew where the catamount was, we might go to him and say, 'Hereis your rabbit.' As we don't, Robin had better have it. He won't mind.He didn't get much supper. We've got to make our food last."

  Robin did not seem to mind much, and so the other two let him finish thepoor cat's find, while they divided a bit of Nell's bread between them.It was cold. They were both rather weary all over, but they laughed andneither one nor the other confessed to that weariness, for this was onlythe beginning of the trail.

  Nell decreed just one more hour in their bags, and then they must breakcamp and get off with dawn. She got no more sleep herself, thatinterlude had been too strenuous. She lay warm in her fur bagthinking--thinking, as the dark turned into grey. Then she got out ofher bag and started on the morning work, perhaps the most miserable anddifficult time in the twenty-four hours of a day's trail. The stiffnesshad not gone out of her tired muscles, her hands seemed stupid with thebitter morning chill. But Nell said never a word. She was leader, andit was her job to keep the flag flying, whatever she felt herself.

  Soon the fire was blazing and the billy-can hung over it to boil water.Then she got out her treat, the special secret she had planned for thetwo first mornings. In the bag with the foodstuffs and utensils she hadhidden a tight-lidded can of ready-made oatmeal porridge. There wasalways a sack of the coarse kind at the log house, and so Nell hadboiled enough--or rather taken what was boiling--it was always ready athome. Only enough for two mornings, but even that would be a help. "Onewants breaking in by degrees," thought poor Nell as her blue handsstirred the porridge.

  David woke and saw it; what he said about that surprise made things verycheerful. Later on there grew a faint pinkness, low between the trees.The snow had ceased to fall, and far away the sun was rising on thewhite world. Nell did not say so, because her principle always wasnever to look for trouble, or to express dread of a possible one, but itwas a pity the snow had ceased to fall. Moreover, either the shelter ofthe wood made the air less bitter or it really was warmer. And she didnot want a thaw--not yet. There was that long, long river road ahead,and though the ice would remain thick, a thaw would start the littlestreamlets in the hills, thousands of small springs would trickle downinto the river bed, and that would set the water swelling and liftingunder the ice.

  There was the more need for hurry. That was the way she looked at it.So breakfast was eaten, the sled neatly packed, and the party on thetrail again before true daylight.

  The first thing they came across as they turned into the river road wasthe dead body of the catamount. Nell was sorry about it. The greatbrindled beast was so torn and disfigured.

  "After all, it was his rabbit," she said again. "I hate lynxes."

  "The lynx got an ugly one in the eye all the same," suggested David."It's not feeling very lively this
morning."

  So they left their first camp and sped away and away again along thewhite road, eating up the miles. Their spirits rose after the firsteffort, because it seemed so easy. The stiffness wore off and theyseemed to grow stronger. The only thing that worried Nell at all wasthe thaw. It made the snow soft, so that the trail was heavy, and everynow and then they heard the tiny trickle sound that meant water fromsomewhere.

  Again, supposing they were followed, the trail was deep and obvious. Ofcourse, if the thaw continued the snow would go into a slush, but atpresent the track lay horribly plain, long ruts made by the sled runnersand the print of Robin's feet.

  However, there was no use lamenting what could not be helped, but itmade Nell more anxious than she showed in her manner. They stoppedevery now and then to change places, and made the longer halt abouttwelve for dinner as before. They were so hot with pulling that therewas not the least hankering after hot food, which was a comfort, as themeal was made off pemmican as before.

  It was late afternoon, and when they were beginning to get tired--reallytired, that the first serious check came in the long hours of swiftprogress.

  The thaw seemed to have ceased and an icy wind got up, moaning dismallyin the tree-tops. The river, which had been always rather narrow,widened out within a sort of gorge of rocks and brushwood. The bed ofit began to slope slightly in a long series of what would be rapids whenthe water was flowing, and then, on a turn, they came to the rocky dipof a high waterfall. Frozen it was still, of course. One mass of iceand snow. Rather a terrible place in the strange stillness of itshold-up. And everywhere rocks--rocks and steep, difficult placesblending with the forest.

  "And _now_ what next?" said David, looking about.

  "Let's look round first," his sister answered cautiously.

  So they left the sled, and taking Robin they made an examination of bothsides of the fall. This was a long business, but it ended in thediscovery that the river made a sharp loop here, as well as a fall, andtheir best plan would be to drag the sled through the wood--down thehill, of course--cut across the loop, and pick up the river again abouta mile below.

  It was going to delay them some time, and both of them were too wellversed in scoutcraft to think for a moment that it would confuse thetrail or shake off a pursuer, because what they had done would be soobvious. However, it could not be helped, and so Nell, keen to get itover, decided to start on this overland bit at once. David was willingenough, but they soon found the business was a worse job than theirworst fears had reached.

  A yard or two at a time, and then it became a matter of going far roundsome impossible obstacle, cutting a way through impassable undergrowth,or letting the sled down a rock wall. And darkness was closing in.