She heard a skirmish in the grasses by the viaduct, where Muddy Branch tunneled under the old canal. In quick leaps she neared the spot. There in a clearing was her son, back arched high, forepaws dangling. He was challenging one of Vulpes’ sturdy pups; and the dauntless expression on his face was bitter to see. The fox was ready to spring on the little warrior. He heard the approach of the mother mink coming to protect her son. In a flash, the young fox pup was up the bank and through the woods, with Vison leaping after him in short bounding strides. But he was no match for the young fox, who easily out-ran him. After watching the fox swiftly disappear, he turned his rage on his mother who had driven the pup away. The young mink plummeted down the hill. He lunged at her in savage wrath catching her with his pin-point teeth beneath the neck. She easily freed herself from her excited youngster and rolled him down the bank into the stream. The sudden bath calmed his rage, and Vison came ashore in better spirits. His mother licked the water from his nose and whiskers, and silently the two set off to join the sisters.
CHAPTER TWO
HYLOCICHLA, THE WOOD THRUSH, flew out of the low witch hazel bush and sailed to the moist forest floor. Here, under last year’s leaves were the freshly emerged May beetles upon which he was feeding. He caught one and flew swiftly back to the bush. The branch swayed as he alighted, and the movement set up a chitter of begging voices. After mashing the beetle the bird turned to his nestlings.
Three young wood thrushes reached up from the rootlet-lined nest. Buffeting each other with their wings, they opened wide their yellow bills. Swiftly the bird fed his young and returned to the woods.
With his head out of the den, Vison was watching this noisy drama. He saw Hylocichla’s spotted breast as he glided over the den in his constant journeys. He heard the twittering voices of the young birds each time their father returned. When Hylocichla flew around the stream bend in search of food, Vison left the den and stole toward the witch hazel bush.
Up in the thin limbs he could see the firm bulk of the nest carefully designed from wet leaf-mold and sticks. The fluffy feathers of the ten-day old birds crowded over the edge.
Vison climbed to the nearest fork in the bush, and started up the branch that held the nest. He was making some progress on the slippery limb when he was startled by a swish of cinnamon-brown feathers. Vison braced himself to meet this surprise attack. It was Mustelina, the bright-eyed mate. She was screaming in “tut, tut, tuts,” an alarm that aroused the woodland. Excitedly she flirted her lowered wings as she hopped from twig to twig. Vison kept an eye on her as he resumed climbing the bush. Mustelina swooped at him again. This time the tip of her wing grazed Vison’s head, and he spun around to retreat to a lower fork. Again he started up the branch. A loud chirping filled the air, and a small bird, still trimmed with white down, sailed uneasily over his head and across the stream.
The young mink sprang to the ground and bounded to the creek bed. He dived into the water and swam swiftly to the other shore.
The warning notes of Mustelina had called Hylocichla from his insect gathering. Zooming over the creek, he spotted the young mink swimming toward the other shore. He also saw his fledgling hopping helplessly on the ground. With thoughtless audacity, the wood thrush dived at Vison as he came out of the water. The mink heard the air whistle through Hylocichla’s feathers as he skimmed his ear. Vison spotted the small bird on the ground and leapt toward him. He missed. The terrified Hylocichla flew at him again. Vison made another attempt to catch the young bird, but the fledgling, sensing his danger, lifted himself on laboring wings and crash-landed on the limb of a young maple tree. Vison rushed beneath him, ready for any clumsy move that might send the young bird down to him.
On the other side of the stream the two remaining nestlings, aroused by the excitement, had fluttered from the nest and were cheeping in the mosses by the edge of the creek. Vison saw them and charged for the new prey. Mustelina dived at him as he came splashing and bounding through the shallows below the pool. Heedless of the frantic parents, the mink chased the young birds from one low limb to the next. His excitement mounted high when they teetered on their perch or fell unsteadily to a lower perch.
The alarm notes of the thrushes, the chirps of the small birds, and the hissing of the mink carried far through the woods. The curious blue jays heard and screamed to the scene. The red-eyed vireos scolded as they worked their overhead way toward the commotion, and Vulpes, the red fox, returning from a trip down the canal, stopped along the crest of the hill to listen to the alarm. The wind carried the musky odor of the excited mink to his sensitive nose. The fox turned off his trail and sped to the edge of the stream. Vison was ready to lunge for Mustelina, who had placed herself between the mink and her young, when he saw the fox glide into the opening at the brink of the stream. This was the end of the hunt. He plummeted over the bank into the protecting waters of Muddy Branch.
Vulpes saw that the young birds were perched out of his reach and that the agitated parents were now aware of his presence. There was no game there. He turned to hunt Vison. Stealthily he watched the water for the mink.
Vison, however, knew that he was the hunted now. He swam into the tangled roots of an old tree that stood half in the water, before he came up to breathe. He dived under again. When he had swum as far as he could, he clutched the underwater bank of the stream and lifted his head above the water without breaking a ripple. Several feet beyond him was a fallen tree that reached down to the edge of the stream. He ducked beneath the surface and came out behind it. With the log between himself and the fox, he climbed swiftly up the bank and took a white-footed mouse trail to his den. The alert Vulpes caught the scent of the fleeing Vison and darted after him. In a few leaps he nearly closed the distance between them, but Vison had won enough of an advantage to make the hole at the foot of the sycamore. He pulled into the narrow-passage as Vulpes darted in behind him. The excited fox thrust his nose into the den, looked up to see if Vison had come up somewhere else, circled the tree several times, and then cocked his head to the side to listen for other prey.
Vison’s mother hissed at her son as he came home, sides heaving and eyes wild and red. She knew he had met some adventure. It was dangerous for him to travel alone.
Just before dawn the mink family went out to search for food. In single file, the mother leading, the docile sister in the rear, the five mink left their home and went down an old game trail that led to the canal where the frogs and newts and crayfish dwelt. Their excursions to this inland waterway were never long, for the mother knew she must keep her young within spurting distance of the den.
The sycamore tree was a few hundred yards away from the canal, an easy journey in the still hours before morning. The warm yellows of dawn were just hitting the tops of the trees when the mother mink halted and rose to her hind feet. Vison recognized fear in her tense back. She disappeared under the leaves like vanishing rain. Vison did not see, hear, or smell any enemies, but he knew when to obey. He dived into a chipmunk hole at the foot of a butternut tree.
The other youngsters also heeded the warning signal of their mother and dived for protection. The docile sister pounced into a small pocket of leaves. She lay still under the loose covering. The shallow hollow began to feel bare and exposed. She felt as if her back were visible to the whole forest. After a moment she circled to find the deepest pocket of the refuge.
The slight movement was seen by Accipter, the Cooper’s hawk. He dropped with closed wings from his perch in a sycamore tree, skimming the leaves above the small mink with open talons. But he found nothing to strike; the youngster was safe beneath a root.
The strike of Accipter hushed the woods. Birds darted to cover. A stillness settled through the glade.
Crouched in his chipmunk hole, Vison heard the songs die in the throats of the birds. He waited, then crept to the light to see what had happened. He saw the agile hawk, winging and turning through the limbs of the trees, smoothly pull its way through the tree tops. It alarm
ed him. He knew his enemies of the land and streams, but this was a new threat, a threat from above. Instinctively he recognized this darting Accipter swiftly twisting through the forest as a danger. This bird brought a sensation to him that was different from that of Hylocichla or the other song birds. This was a bird of prey!
His mother had darted out of her leafy covering and was standing on her hind legs looking after the hawk. She curled back her lips and screeched her hissing snarl. Vison could see her eyes flashing with anger.
When the birds had found their voices again, the mink came out of their dens and continued their trek to the canal. Vison’s mother was quicker, more agile than usual. She made short work of her food gathering at the waterway. Her quickened mood was imitated by the youngsters. And it was a swifter, more alert family that sped through the thickets back to their den.
A few evenings later, Vison went with his mother on one of their nocturnal prowls to learn more of the wild. They crossed the canal. On the far bank they came upon the hidden retreat of Pitymys, the pine mouse. His den was a network of underground runways made beneath the decaying leaves of the bank. The mother mink skirted them to see if Pitymys had come out through one of the numerous openings. She could only find where he had left the den, chewed sections of grasses and gone back to his subterranean chambers. He was still somewhere under the earth.
The mink and her son darted around until the hunt was obviously done and then traveled on toward the river.
In crossing the grassy tow-path, they startled Zapus, the jumping mouse. With a bound, Zapus left her nest in the grasses and leapt through the weedy thickets, carrying four pendant youngsters with her. Her long tail balanced her as she cleared the tall grasses in bounding hops and disappeared into the crumbling retaining wall of the canal. One youngster, jarred loose, tumbled into the grass, a helpless victim for Vison.
At the river, Vison explored a decaying log while his mother fished nearby. He followed the log to its rotted stump. With playful curiosity he popped his head into the musty interior. It was dark and was hung with webs. Vison sniffed loudly as he entered. Only the dank smell of rotting wood filled the air. A narrow tunnel twisted back into the trunk. Vison edged his way along it, blowing the crumbling wood out of his nose and eyes. The passage widened into a hollow. Here Vison found a floor of hickory nuts, probably stored there by Tamias, the chipmunk. He turned one of them over and disturbed a hairy spider. Vison snapped it as it shifted sidewise toward its gray nest. Then he continued across the nuts to the end of the hollow. Rising to his hind feet, he reached up into the dark. His paw struck a ledge, and he leapt up to find what was there. The ledge was small and unsafe. Vison’s weight brought it tumbling down onto the hickory nuts. Scrambling and kicking out of the debris the little mink looked for the exit. It had been closed by the falling wood. Digging furiously Vison tried to find the lost tunnel. Soft rotten chips flew wildly around the room as he moved along the wall. A large grub tumbled out of the soft wood, and Vison grabbed it in his teeth. The tender insect tasted sweet, and he searched for more. In a chink of wall he found another grub. He dug after it as it retreated into its cupped hole. His digging carried him through the decayed wood and into the lost tunnel. Swiftly Vison wedged his way out into the dusk. Shaking the wood particles from his fur, he rushed up and down the bank seeking his mother.
He found her on a rock several feet out in the water, eating a crayfish. She looked up when he came toward her, catching the smell of old wood on his fur.
Vison swam silently to her side. He rubbed his fur clean and then pounced on the hard tail of the crustacean. His mother took it from him. He jumped toward her mouth to regain it pawing her with his strong feet.
Their play was stopped by the throaty gabble of a wood duck, circling in toward the rock with a brood of small ducklings. Vison crouched low as the duck family came nearer. The white-circled bright eye of the mother shone like a teardrop in the dusk. Vision was waiting, forepaws tensed under his body. Suddenly his mother slid from the rock and dived into the water. Excitement surged through the young mink as he realized that his mother was retreating from danger. Vison slipped into a crevice in the rocks. For several minutes he lay still. A pungent odor, mixed with many scents, came on the wind. Lifting his head, he sniffed and peered across the brush toward the tow-path.
Three large animals were swinging along the evening trail heedless of hawks, foxes, or owls. They were men who also made their homes along the river and were noisily returning from a fishing trip. Vison saw the glistening bodies of catfish dangling at their sides. The wood duck heard them and skidded far out into the dark river with her brood. Then Vison’s mother came out of the water and returned to the crayfish on the rock. Vison joined her. The men were apparently harmless, and the mother and son went back to their hunting.
The young mink worked back to the shore and began to weave along the water’s edge. A new scent caught his attention and he sought its origin. His loud sniffing drew his mother from the stone to the shore. She picked up the disturbing odor and moved up the river bank several feet. There in the sand she began to dig. Vison joined the hunt, sending rockets of sand bursting out behind him. A few more strokes and they uncovered a cluster of white eggs. They were not hard and brittle like the eggs of birds, but leathery and deeply dented. The mink had found the nest of Chelydra, the snapping turtle, and mother and son set about destroying the eggs of this treacherous enemy of the animals of streams and ponds.
Night had come when their hunting trip was over. Full and content, the mink were ready to return to the sycamore tree. Vison’s mother picked up a large fish she had caught for her daughters and turned toward the canal and Muddy Branch.
Urocyon, the gray fox, watched them cross the tow-path. Patiently lying in the brush, he waited for them to cross the canal and enter the woods. Knowing the swiftness and power of the mink, he planned a surprise attack. He knew a spot along the trail they were following where they could be cornered against the cliff.
Loping in graceful bounds, the two came on, taking the avenue Urocyon had anticipated. When Vison’s mother rounded the bend and the fox could see her sleek body against the cliff, he sprang.
Vison saw the fox streak toward him and the teeth and paws close simultaneously on his mother. With a scream he bounded for cover, leaving his mother to fight the big animal. She leapt, dodged, and turned, snake-like and swift. The fox nervously judged her next movement. The mink knew, however, that she was cornered. There was no exit. Rising to her hind feet, Vison’s mother fought with inspired ferocity to the end. The longer she battled, the farther her son could run. She screamed and hissed and lunged as if all the odds were in her favor.
Vison was swimming swiftly up the stream now, his heart shaking and his eyes afire as he breasted the current. At a far sand bank the young mink stopped. He listened to the woodland battle. The piercing screech of his mother rang through the dark. Suddenly the battle stopped. The silence was more dreadful than the fury of the fight. Vison turned and slunk up the shore of the stream.
As he covered the trail to the den, the night woods seemed to grow in blackness and danger. The gray-white branches of the sycamore stretched like foreboding tentacles across the sky. The deep pockets of the valley moved with unseen life. Far on the hill the eerie laugh of Vulpes came lilting out of the dark. The sound grew and grew until Vison felt the entire forest was filled with the wavering laugh. Then it ceased and the silence pressed down against the distorted leaves and witch-like branches.
Faster and faster he swam, hitting the shallow bars in a spray of water and throwing himself into the next pool. Reaching the pool before the den, Vison swept in and out in one swing. He plunged into the safety of the sycamore-tree den. Inside he waited and listened. There were no unusual sounds in the night. Vison slid down the tunnel to his restless sisters.
They crouched back against the clay walls when he entered, aware of his intense excitement. His alarm was communicated to them and they watc
hed him with nervous eyes.
All night the four mink waited for their mother to return. She did not come back.
By dawn the sisters were hungry and irritable. They cried and squirmed. Vison alone was sleeping. A bolder sister finally left the den to search the waterway for her mother. She came back seemingly to inquire of her brother the meaning of their abandonment.
Vison looked at her, as if trying to communicate the disaster to her. Snapping angrily, she passed him and again disappeared down the tunnel toward the stream.
The other sisters crouched in the dry grasses and watched their brother helplessly. Perhaps they were looking to him for protection. But such tenderness was not his nature.
He left the den the next evening and never returned. It little concerned him what became of his orphaned sisters. He had lost his protecting companion, and now he thought only of his own survival. He must match his wits and strength against the wilderness community without the guidance of his mother. This took all his energies.
That evening he caught some frogs along the bank. He wandered far up Muddy Branch, going in and out of holes and crevices. He tested them for protection and warmth, and because none seemed to fill his requirements he moved on. Several hours later he came upon a dry hollow under an old tree trunk that lay across Muddy Branch. It was sealed against the weather and hidden from the stream and wildlife trails of the woods. Into this high, dry hideout he brought leaves and grasses. Placing them loosely in the dark retreat, Vison curled up to sleep away the remainder of the night.
He forgot his family life and took up the solitary life of the mink.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SUMMER WAS DIFFICULT for Vison. Those things he had not learned from his mother he now learned through trial and error. He fought alone against a community that was forever selecting the weak from the strong, the inexperienced from the experienced, the dull from the sharp-witted.