THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL. CARLES G.D.ROMBRIS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 63

THE WATCHERS OF THE TRAIL. CARLES G.D.ROMBRIS.

The trail thiough the foicsf was lough and long unu'ed. In q>o> ILc rcvis «nd ground vines had so o\erurov. n it that only the broad sjais on the tiee trunks, where the lumberman's axe had bl ized them for a sign, served ro distinguish it from a score of radiating vistas. But just here, whue it climbed a long, gradual slope, the run ot water do»n its slight hollow" had sufficed to keep its worn stones partly bale Moieover. though the furrow in:; st<=-ps of man had left it these many reasons untrodden, it was never wholly neglected. A path once fairly differentiated by the <=ucce*sive pass.nqs o f feet will keep, almost tor ever, a spell for the persuasion of all that go afoot. . . On this September afternoon, when the stillness seemed to wait wideeyed, suddenly a cock-partridge cime whirring up the "trail, alighted on a gnarled limb, turned his outstretched head twice from side to side as he peered with his round beads of eye«, and then .stiffened into the moveless semblance of ona of the fungoid excrescences v ith. which the tree was studded. A moment moie and tlie sound of footsteps, of the nails of heavy boots striking on the stones, grew conspicuous against the silence. Up the trail came slouching, with a strong but laborious stride a large grizzled man in grey homespuns.

Keen of vision, skilled in woodcraft I though he was, the grave-faced old lumberman saw nothing in the tranquillity about him saVe tree trunks, and fallen, rotting remnants, and mossed hillocks, and thickets , of tangled shrub. He noted the difference, | no* known uO the general eye, betw een white spruce, black spruce, and fir, between grey birch and yellow birch, between whitewood and viburnum ; and he read instinctively, by the lichen growth about their edges, how many seasons had laid their disfeaturing touch upon these old scars of the axe which marked the trail. But for all his craft he thought himself alone. He guessed not of the many eyes that watched him. In truth, his progress was the focus of an innumerable attention The furtive ej e.s that followed his movements were some of them timorously hostile, some impoteutly vindictive, some in- , different, but all alien. All were at one in the will to remain unseen ; so all kept an unwinking immobility, and were swallowed up, as it were, in the universal stillness. 'Ihe cock-partridge, a well-travelled bird who knew the Settlements and their violent perils, watched with indignant apprehension Not without purpose had he come whirring so tuimiltuoiisly up the trail, a warning to the ears of all the woodfolk. His fear was lest the corning of this grey . man-figure should mean an invasion of those long black sticks which went off with | smoky bang when they were pointed. He j effaced himself till his brown mottled feathers were fairly one with the mottled brown bark of his perch ; but his liquid eyes lo<-t not a least movement of the ! stranger. ... ' A little farther back from the trail, nr J- : | a spreading tangle of ironwood, on a bed j of tawny mo«s crouched a hate. His e'u - -: • lay quite flat along the back. His es es> I watched with aversion, not in mixed w-jth j scorn, the heavy, tall ere tture that mo-p ' , with such effort and s'ich rc:i~. "I- 'v*-- 1 , i thought the hare, disdainfully. " \, , .Id i,e be able to escape from his Liiemic:- ' " A- | the delicate current of air winch- pu!-e= imperceptibly through the forest bor.j the scentof the man to the haie's h.du~ p pee, I the fine nostrils of the litter wr-l-ed i ,- ( pidly with disl ke. On a .sudden, Lva came a waft ot other scent; a"d ihe li<-. <l form seemed fo shrink to hall it ■j cir,\ tht nostrils rigidly dilating. It \n= thf -.cen* of the w case 1 . — to the hare it w '- the ver;. essence of death. But it pass-ed iv :>n instant, and then the hare's exaU vision say whence it cim. 1 . For the wea«el, unlike all the other folk of the wood, was moving He was keejpmg pa^c with the man, at »i distance of "sc.r:c 10ft from the trail. So fitted, how ever, was his colouring to his | surrounding, or &hadosr-like in its sound- j less giPCi was h»s motion, that the man | never discerned him. The weasel's eyes I were fixed upon the intruder With a rnaiig- ] nancy of hate that might wcU have scjki'. through h:s unconsc-ousm^. ...

From the moss.\ cioich of a:> cU a*li tree, slanting over the trail, a n-ur of pak. yellow-preen eyes, with line black sLts for pupils, -watched the tiaveiler's march The\ were set in a rotuul. fuuy head nlneh va- pro-cd Hat to the brine l ) ainl paril' ovdhung if Tho pomttd, lufti ears lav flit upo.i the lound. bio\ v n he' ' Into the baik nf tlie branch fnui sets o razor-edged claws du^ them&elves venon ously : for the wild vit knew, peri Kip through «ome occult communication fro' its frfi-r>ff domesticated km of health i.iicl door-^ill, that in mm he ta^ the one nnvanquisiiablc enemy to all the folk (if f ; i > w ood He it<.hed ficicely to drop upon lh man's bowed neck, just wheie it sh'ivc' red and defenceless, between the g>>'' bundle and the rim of the brciin hat. ]3"i the wild cat, the leaser lynx. »va^ h.ir ti' a ferocity reil-tempeied with di«-cieli ) and the old lumberman slouched oiiv.i'i unharmed, all ignorant of that green Ac:v

of hate playing upon his nek

It was a verj different which fol lowed him from the heait of v little colon \ of rotting stump>, in a ddik hollow ncai the trail Here, in the cool gloom, sat Kroof. the bear, rocking her huge body contemplatively from side to sid^ on hci haunches, und occasionally oft a mosquito from the sensitive tip of her nose. She had no cub running w ith hci that <- ea - son to keep her bus-y and anxious. Foi ar houi she had been comfortably rocking. untroumed by fear or desne w- indignation : but v. hon the whining of the cock puliu'ge s^ave liei wain ug. and Hie giatmg of the nailer) boot-- caught her c u\ had stiffened mutant U into one of the big biown stumps Hei In. tic red eye^ followed the stianger with come-thm^ like a twinkle in them. She had seen men before, and she neither actively feared them nor

actively dislihud them Only. ;'wi-e to needless tumble, sh • Cui'ud 'kj' t r ) i t.i:iJi? herself on their nclice; and fi.eifime sin' obeyed the custom ni Ire ■<, oc;. ,t>,d I'L'pistill. l<ut tlie be.v is dn th.» iih)^ ; . liiiman </f all tlie fuiry word-foil. i!ie mo:t \c-a-tile .md l^i to!ei,.nt. tl>e Lr^-t en^!i\o(J by its siiuo.i'.diii ••