After half an hour of coasting all collected at the top of the slide for wrestling contests. A number dodged about, touching, tagging, rearing to clinch and then to roll over. Several exhibitions were occurring at one time. A few times one chased another several yards from the crowd. Once a number stood up in pairs with forepaws on each other's shoulders and appeared to be waltzing. Finally there was a free-for-all mix-up, a grand rush. One appeared to have an object, perhaps a cone, which all the others were after. Then, as if by common consent, all plunged down the slide together. At the bottom they rolled about for a few seconds in merry satisfaction, but only for a few seconds, for soon several climbed up again and came coasting down in pairs. Thus for an hour the play in the frosty moonlight went on, and without cry or uttered sound. They were coasting singly when I slipped away to my campfire.

The otter is one of the greatest of travellers. He swims the streams for miles or makes long journeys into the hills. On land he usually selects the smoothest, easiest way, but once I saw him descend a rocky precipice with speed and skill excelled only by the bighorn sheep. He has a permanent home range and generally this is large. From his den beneath the roots of a tree, near a stream bank or lake sh.o.r.e, he may go twenty miles up or down stream; or he may traverse the woods to a far-off lake or cross the watershed to the next stream, miles away. He appears to emigrate sometimes--goes to live in other scenes.

These long journeys for food or adventure, sometimes covering weeks, must fill the otter's life with colour and excitement. Swimming miles down a deep watercourse may require only an hour or two. But a journey up stream often to its very source, through cascades and scant water, would often force the travellers out of the channel and offer endless opportunities for slow progress and unexpected happenings. What an experience for the youngsters!

They may travel in pairs, in families or in numbers. The dangers are hardly to be considered. The grizzly bear could kill with a single bite or stroke of paw; but the agility of the otter would discourage such an attack. A pack of wolves, could they corner the caravan, would likely after severe loss feast on the travellers. The only successful attack that I know of was by a mountain lion on a single otter. Yet so efficient is this long-bodied, deep-biting fellow that I can imagine the mountain lion usually avoiding the otter's trail.

The long land journeys from water to water appear to call for the greatest resourcefulness and to offer all the events that lie in the realm of the unexplored. Between near-by streams and lakes there are regular and well-worn ways. By easy grades these follow mostly open ways across rough country. It is likely that even the long, seldom-used, and unmarked ways across miles of watersheds are otter trails that have been used for ages.

Fortunate folks, these otters, to have so much time, and such wild, romantic regions for travel and exploration! After each exciting time that I have watched them I have searched for hours and days trying to see another outfit of otter explorers. But only a few brief glimpses have I had of these wild, picturesque, adventurous bands.

In all kinds of places, in action for fun or food, frolic or fight, the otter ever gives a good account of himself. He appears to fear only man. Though he may be attacked by larger animals this matter is not heavily on his mind, for when he wants to travel he travels; and he does this, too, both in water and on land, and by either day or night. To a remarkable degree he can take care of himself. Though I have not seen him do so, I can readily believe the stories that accredit this twenty-pound weasel-like fellow with killing young bears and deer, and drowning wolves and dogs.

The otter is a fighter. One day I came upon records in the snow far from the water that showed he had walked into a wild-cat ambush. The extensively trampled snow told that the desperate contest had been a long one. The cat was left dead, and the otter had left two pressed and b.l.o.o.d.y s.p.a.ces in the snow where he had stopped to dress his wounds on the way to the river. On another occasion the fierceness of the otter was attested to by two coyotes that nearly ran over me in their flight after an a.s.sault on the rear guard of a band of overland otter emigrants.

Probably the only animal that enters a beaver pond that gives the beaver any concern is the otter. One morning I had glimpses of a battle in a beaver pond between a large invading otter and numerous home-defense beavers. Most of the fighting was under water, but the pond was roiled and agitated over a long stretch, beginning where the attack commenced and extending to the incoming brook, where the badly wounded otter made his escape.

Both beaver and otter can remain under water for minutes, and during this time put forth their utmost and most effective efforts. Several times during this struggle the contestants came up where they could breathe. Twice when the otter appeared he was at it with one large beaver; another time he was surrounded by several, one or more of which had their teeth in him. When he broke away he was being vigorously mauled by a single beaver, which appeared content to let him go since the otter was bent on escape. It was an achievement for the otter to have held his own against such odds. The beaver is at home in the water, and, moreover, has terrible teeth and is a master in using them.

Though originally a land animal, the otter is now also master of the water. He has webbed feet and a long, sea lion-like neck, which give him the appearance of an animal especially fitted for water travel. He outswims fish and successfully fights the wolf and the beaver in the water. He still has, however, extraordinary ability on land, where he goes long journeys and defends himself against formidable enemies.

There are straggling otters which invade the realm of the squirrel by climbing trees.

The otter is a mighty hunter and by stealth and strength kills animals larger than himself. He is also a most successful fisherman and is rated A1 in water. Here his keen eyes, his speed and quickness enable him to outswim and capture the lightning-like trout. Fish is his main article of diet, but this must be fresh--just caught; he is a fish hog. He also eats crawfish, eels, mice, rabbits, and birds. However, he is an epicure and wants only the choicer cuts. He never stores food or returns to finish a partly eaten kill. The more abundant the food supply the less of each catch or kill will he eat.

Food saving is not one of his habits, and conservation has never been one of his practices. Though he hunts and travels mostly at night and alone, he is variable in his habits.

Like all keen-witted animals the otter is ever curious concerning the new or the unusual. He has a good working combination of the cautious and the courageous. One day an otter in pa.s.sing hurriedly rattled gravel against a discarded sardine can. He gave three or four frightened leaps, then turned to look back. He wondered what it was.

With circling, cautious advances he slowly approached and touched the can. It was harmless--and useful. He cuffed it and chased it; he played with it as a kitten plays with a ball. Presently he was joined in the play by another. For several minutes they battered it about, fell upon it, raced for it, and strove to be the first to reach it.

The otter is distributed over North America, but only in Alaska and northern Canada does the population appear to have been crowded. In most areas it might be called spa.r.s.e. In reduced numbers he still clings to his original territory. That he has extraordinary ability to take care of himself is shown in his avoiding extermination, though he wears a valuable coat of fur. In England he has survived and is still regularly hunted and trapped. Like the fox he is followed with horse and hounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. by Enos A. Mills_ _A Beaver House and Winter Food Supply_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. by Enos A. Mills_ _A Beaver House in the First Snow_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Drawing by Will James_ _Coyote--Clown of the Prairies_]

Relentless in chase for food and fierce in defense of self or young, yet he is affectionate at home and playful with his fellows. If an old one is trapped or shot the mate seeks the absent one, wandering and occasionally wailing for days. Perhaps they mate for life.

The young, one to four at a birth, are born about the first of May.

They are blind for perhaps six weeks. They probably are weaned before they are four months old, but run with the parents for several months.

Both parents carry food for the young and both appear devoted to them.

As soon as they are allowed to romp or sleep in the sunshine they are under the ever-watchful eye of one of the parents. Woe to the accidental intruder who comes too close. A hawk or owl is warned off with far-reaching snarls and hisses. If high water, landslides, or the near presence of man threatens the youngsters they are carried one at a time to a far-off den.

The hide-and-seek play appears to be the favourite one of the cubs, kits, or pups, as they are variously called. They may hide behind mother, behind a log, or beneath the water.

The otter has a powerful, crushing bite and jaws that hang on like a vise. A tug-of-war between two youngsters, each with teeth set in the opposite ends of a stick, probably is a good kind of preparation for the future. They may singly or sometimes two at a time ride on mother's back as she swims about low in the water. When they are a little older mother slips from under them, much to their fright and excitement. She thus forces them to learn to swim. Though most habits are likely instinctive they are trained in swimming.

The otter's two or two-and-a-half foot body is carried on four short legs which have webbed and clawed feet. One weighs from fifteen to twenty-five pounds. Clad in a coat of fur and a sheet of fat he enjoys the icy streams in winter. He also enjoys life in the summer. Though with habits of his own he has ways of the weasel and of the sea otter.

He sends forth a variety of sounds and calls. He whistles a signal or chirps with contentment; he hisses and he bristles up and snarls; he sniffs and gives forth growls of many kinds.

His active brain, eternal alertness, keen senses, and agile body gave him a rare equipment in the struggle for existence. He is in this struggle commonly a conqueror. "Yes," said a lazy but observing trapper one evening by my campfire, "the otter has more peculiarities than any other animal of the wilderness. Concealed under his one skin are three or four kinds of animals." And this I found him. Doubtless there are many interesting unrecorded and unseen customs concerning this inscrutable and half-mysterious animal.

Possibly the otter heads the list in highly developed play habit.

Sometimes numbers gather in advance to prepare a place on which to play. The otter slide rivals the beaver dam when wild folks' ways are discussed. It is interesting that this capable animal with a wide range of efficient versatility should be the one that appears to give the most regular attention to play.

CHAPTER VI

THE BIGHORN IN THE SNOW

One winter morning an old mountain sheep came down from the heights, through the deep snow, and called at my cabin. We had already spent a few years trying to get acquainted. Most of these slow advances had been made by myself, but this morning he became a real neighbour, and when I opened the door the Master of the Crags appeared pleased to see me. Although many a shy, big fellow among the wild folks had accepted me as a friend, I had not even hoped to have a close enough meeting with a wild bighorn ram to make an introduction necessary for good form.

I stood for a moment just outside the cabin door. The situation was embarra.s.sing for us both; our advances were confusing, but I finally brought about a meeting of actual contact with bighorn. With slowness of movement I advanced to greet him, talking to him all the while in low tones. Plainly his experiences a.s.sured him that I was not dangerous, yet at the same time instinct was demanding that he retreat. For a time I held him through interest and curiosity, but presently he backed off a few steps. Again I slowly advanced and steadily a.s.sured him in the universal language--tone--that all was well. Though not alarmed, he moved off at right angles, apparently with the intention of walking around me. I advanced at an angle to intercept him. With this move on my part, he stopped to stare for a moment, then turned and started away.

I started after him at full speed. He, too, speeded, but with snowshoes I easily circled him. He quickly saw the folly of trying to outrun me; and if he did not accept the situation with satisfaction, as I think he did, he certainly took things philosophically. He climbed upon a snow-draped boulder and posed as proudly as a Greek G.o.d. Then he stared at me.

Presently he relaxed and showed a friendly interest. I then advanced and formally introduced myself, accompanying my movements with rapid comment and chatter. I asked him if he was glad to be alive, asked his opinion concerning the weather, the condition of his flock, and finally, told him that game preserves was one of my hobbies, and in such refuges I trusted he had a deep interest. All this, while within a few yards of him and in a most friendly tone; still he remained almost coldly curious.

At last I begged the rare privilege of taking his picture, and as he was not in a place for good picture-taking, I proceeded to drive him to a spot closer to my cabin. To my astonishment he was willingly driven! He went along as though he had often been driven and as though going to a place of which he was fond!

Among scattered pines and willows by my brook I circled him and took a number of photographs. At last I walked up to my bighorn friend, rubbed his back and felt his horns. He was not frightened but appeared to enjoy these attentions, and to seem proud of my a.s.sociation. But, my big speechless fellow, I had the most from your call!

Twice afterward, once in the winter and once mid-summer, he called and came up to me, and with dignified confidence licked salt from my hand.

In both the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains there are numerous flocks of bighorn or wild mountain sheep which have a resident stamping ground above the timberline, at an alt.i.tude of 12,000 feet. They appear not to migrate, although they go often into the lowlands; in spring for the earliest green stuff, in summer for salt or for a change, and during the winter when conditions commend or command such a move. With the coming of a storm or if there is an attack on them, they at once climb high among the crags, up close to where the eagles soar.

The heights thus is the home of wild sheep. The young are born in bare places among the crags and the snowfields. All stand the storms up close to the sky. They are warmly wrapped; their long, coa.r.s.e outer coat of hair is almost waterproof and defies the cold.

One of my trips as Snow Observer carried me across the wild Continental Divide while the sky was clearing after a heavy snowfall.

In climbing to the summit I pa.s.sed close to three herds of deer that were stranded in deep snow. But the high wind had swept the treeless summit, and in places the snow had been deeply excavated. In other places it had been thrown into ma.s.sive drifts. On the summit plateau at an alt.i.tude of 12,000 feet I rounded a crag and came close upon a flock of mountain sheep in the moorland from which the wind had swept most of the snow. The sheep were bunched, scattered, and a few were lying down. Here in the heights the sheep had already forgotten the storm, while the elk and the deer far down in the wooded slopes were deeply troubled by the snow. With this open place on the mountain top, these hardy dwellers of the summit could long be indifferent to deep snow or to its deliberate melting.

They bunched in the farthest corner of their wind-cleared place and eyed me curiously while I went by. I back-tracked their wallowed trail to the nook in which they had endured the three-day storm. This place was nearly a mile distant, but over most of the way to the snowless pasture the sheep had travelled on the very edge of the plateau, from which wind and gravity had cleared most of the snow. They had stood through the storm bunched closely against a leeward plateau wall several yards below the summit. The snow had eddied down and buried them deeply. It had required a long and severe struggle to get out of this snow and back through it to the summit, as their footmarks and body impressions plainly showed.

This storm was a general one and deeply covered several states. It was followed by two weeks of cold. For several hundred miles along this and other ranges the deer and the elk had a starving time, while the numerous flocks of sheep on summits escaped serious affliction.

Evidently mountain sheep know their range and understand how to fight the game of self-preservation in the mountain snows. The fact that sheep spend their winters on the mountain summits would indicate that they find a lower death rate and more comfort here than they could find in the lowlands.

The morning I started across Sawtooth Pa.s.s the snow was deep. A gray sky and a few lazily falling snowflakes indicated that it might be deepened. And soon the flakes were falling fast and the wind was howling. Only between gusts could I see. But on I went, for it was easier to advance than to retreat.

I pa.s.sed over the summit only to find the wind roaring wildly on the other side. Abandoning the course of the snow-buried trail, I went with the wind, being extremely careful to keep myself under control lest the breezes boost me over an unexpected cliff. The temperature was a trifle below zero, and I watched nose, fingers, and cheeks to keep them from freezing.

Two violent gusts drove me to shelter beneath a shelving rock. After half a minute a long lull came and the air cleared of snow dust. There within thirty feet of me were a number of mountain sheep. Two were grazing in a s.p.a.ce swept bare by the wind. Another was lying down, not in shelter, but out in an exposed place.

Then I caught sight of two lambs and I failed to see what the other sheep were doing. Those lambs! They were in a place where the wind hit violently, as the bare s.p.a.ce around them showed. They were pushing each other, b.u.t.ting their heads together, rearing up on their hind legs. As I watched them another gust came roaring forward; they stopped for a second and then rushed toward it. I caught my last glimpse just as it struck them and they both leaped high to meet it.