And Tito lifted the rescued young one, and travelling as slowly as shewished, they reached the new-made den. There the family safely reunited,far away from danger of further attack by Wolver Jake or his kind.
And there they lived in peace till their mother had finished theirtraining, and every one of them grew up wise in the ancient learning ofthe plains, wise in the later wisdom that the ranchers' war has forcedupon them, and not only they, but their children's children, too. TheBuffalo herds have gone; they have succumbed to the rifles of thehunters. The Antelope droves are nearly gone; Hound and lead were toomuch for them. The Blacktail bands have dwindled before axe and fence.The ancient dwellers of the Badlands have faded like snow under the newconditions, but the Coyotes are no more in fear of extinction. Theirmorning and evening song still sounds from the level buttes, as it didlong years ago when every plain was a teeming land of game. They havelearned the deadly secrets of traps and poisons, they know how to bafflethe gunner and Hound, they have matched their wits with the hunter'swits. They have learned how to prosper in a land of man-made plenty, inspite of the worst that man can do, and it was Tito that taught themhow.
WHY THE CHICKADEE GOES CRAZY ONCE A YEAR
Published September, 1893, in "Our Animal Friends," the organ of theAmerican Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
A long time ago, when there was no winter in the north, the Chickadeeslived merrily in the woods with their relatives, and cared for nothingbut to get all the pleasure possible out of their daily life in thethickets. But at length Mother Carey sent them all a warning that theymust move to the south, for hard frost and snow were coming on theirdomains, with starvation close behind. The Nuthatches and other cousinsof the Chickadees took this warning seriously, and set about learninghow and when to go; but Tomtit, who led his brothers, only laughed andturned a dozen wheels around a twig that served him for a trapeze.
"Go to the south?" said he. "Not I; I am too well contented here; and asfor frost and snow, I never saw any and have no faith in them."
But the Nuthatches and Kinglets were in such a state of bustle that atlength the Chickadees did catch a little of the excitement, and left offplay for a while to question their friends; and they were not pleasedwith what they learned, for it seemed that all of them were to make ajourney that would last many days, and the little Kinglets were actuallygoing as far as the Gulf of Mexico. Besides, they were to fly by nightin order to avoid their enemies the Hawks, and the weather at thisseason was sure to be stormy. So the Chickadees said it was allnonsense, and went off in a band, singing and chasing one anotherthrough the woods.
But their cousins were in earnest. They bustled about making theirpreparations, and learned beforehand what it was necessary for them toknow about the way. The great wide river running southward, the moon atheight, and the trumpeting of the Geese were to be their guides, andthey were to sing as they flew in the darkness, to keep from beingscattered. The noisy, rollicking Chickadees were noisier than ever asthe preparations went on, and made sport of their relatives, who werenow gathered in great numbers, in the woods along the river; and atlength, when the proper time of the moon came, the cousins arose in abody and flew away in the gloom. The Chickadees said that the cousinsall were crazy, made some good jokes about the Gulf of Mexico, and thendashed away in a game of tag through the woods, which, by the by, seemedrather deserted now, while the weather, too, was certainly turningremarkably cool.
At length the frost and snow really did come, and the Chickadees werein a woeful case. Indeed, they were frightened out of their wits, anddashed hither and thither, seeking in vain for someone to set themaright on the way to the south. They flew wildly about the woods, tillthey were truly crazy. I suppose there was not a Squirrel-hole or ahollow log in the neighbourhood that some Chickadee did not enter toinquire if this was the Gulf of Mexico. But no one could tell anythingabout it, no one was going that way, and the great river was hiddenunder ice and snow.
About this time a messenger from Mother Carey was passing with a messageto the Caribou in the far north; but all he could tell the Chickadeeswas that _he_ could not be their guide, as he had no instructions, and,at any rate, he was going the other way. Besides, he told them they hadhad the same notice as their cousins whom they had called "crazy"; andfrom what he knew of Mother Carey, they would probably have to braveit out here all through the snow, not only now, but in all followingwinters; so they might as well make the best of it.
This was sad news for the Tomtits; but they were brave little fellows,and seeing they could not help themselves, they set about making thebest of it. Before a week had gone by they were in their usual goodspirits again, scrambling about the twigs or chasing one another asbefore. They had still the assurance that winter would end. So filledwere they with this idea that even at its commencement, when a freshblizzard came on, they would gleefully remark to one another that it wasa "sign of spring," and one or another of the band would lift his voicein the sweet little chant that we all know so well:
{Illustration: Spring Soon}
Another would take it up and re-echo:
{Illustration: Spring coming}
and they would answer and repeat the song until the dreary woods rangagain with the good news, and people learned to love the brave littleBird that sets his face so cheerfully to meet so hard a case. But tothis day, when the chill wind blows through the deserted woods, theChickadees seem to lose their wits for a few days, and dart into allsorts of odd and dangerous places. They may then be found in greatcities, or open prairies, cellars, chimneys, and hollow logs; and thenext time you find one of the wanderers in any such place, be sure toremember that Tomtit goes crazy once a year, and probably went into hisstrange retreat in search of the Gulf of Mexico.
THE END
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends