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Swamp Cat

<div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/chap_11.jpg" width-obs="91" height-obs="102" alt="" title="" /></div> <h2>THE WAR OF THE OWLS</h2> The next morning, knife in hand, Andy knelt beside his big buck and expertly skinned out both hindquarters. Frosty, entirely at ease as long as no rifles or shotguns were about, sat contentedly near and watched the proceedings with interest. Slitting the tendons, Andy tied a rope through each, slung the other ends of the ropes over a porch beam and made ready to hoist the carcass aloft and finish skinning. Frosty slipped into his favorite hiding place under the porch and did not come out again. Andy slackened the taut ropes and eased the buck down onto the floor. Frosty was not precisely a watch dog, but the boy had learned to tell from the big cat's actions when something was coming. A little while later, Jud Casman appeared around a corner of the house. He was dressed for hunting, but not precisely in the costume which fashion magazines say the well-dressed hunter should wear. He wore wool trousers whose legs had been slit so that they might fit over knee-length rubber boots. It was a good, practical arrangement; snow and water would run down the trouser legs, rather than inside the boots. His upper torso was encased in a jacket over which he wore the cut-off upper half of some red woolen underwear. That, according to Jud, both enabled other hunters to see him and made the jacket snug enough so that some loose end wasn't forever catching in the brush. His hat might have descended to Jud from the first person ever to see the swamp. His rifle matched the costume. It was a muzzle-loader of a type generally associated with frontiersmen and Indian fighters, and it was almost as long as Jud was tall. A single shot, it had been handed down by Jud's father, who in turn had obtained it from his father. The bore had been re-reamed and re-rifled so many times that now it cast a slug approximately the size of a small cannon ball. A lot of people had laughed at Jud and his rifle, but on his side, Jud snickered at those who needed a whole handful of cartridges when, as any child should know, one ball was plenty, if you put it in the right place. Andy, who had seen Jud pick the heads off squirrels and grouse and shoot flying geese, knew that Jud killed whatever he shot at. He left no wounded creature to die in agony. Jud eyed the big buck and expressed his opinion, "Hm-m." Andy said, "It's the big one." "Give ya a heap of trouble?" "I walked right up to him," Andy admitted. "He didn't even run." "I'll give ya a hand," Jud offered. "Just snug them ropes when I lift." Jud leaned his rifle against the house. No big man, he lifted the 200-pound buck without visible strain or effort and Andy tightened the ropes. Saying not another word, Jud picked up his rifle and went into the swamp. Andy resumed his work, cutting with the knife point and pulling the loosened skin down around the carcass. Since this was deer season, obviously Jud was going into the swamp to get himself a deer. Andy knew where there were some, but if Jud had wanted advice, he'd have asked for it. Andy skinned his buck down and severed the head as close to the scalp as possible. He grinned. Some years ago, Old Man Haroldson had taken a party deer hunting and among them they had shot five deer. When it came time to divide the venison, the hunters, with visions of choice steaks and roasts, had offered Old Man Haroldson the five necks. He had accepted with alacrity, and ever since had been gleefully telling how he put one over on the city-slickers, for the neck was the best part of any deer, in his opinion. Whether it was or not, Andy thought, there was a lot of good meat in it. Frosty came out from beneath the porch and again sat companionably close. He turned up his nose at a little chunk of venison Andy threw him. Able to take his choice of the finest viands in the swamp, Frosty would accept second best only when he could not get first. Andy looked with regret at the great antlers, a really fine trophy. But it cost money to have a deer head mounted, and he had no money to spare. He consoled himself with the thought that the antlers, sawed from the scalp and nailed over his door, would still look very nice. He split the carcass and made ready to separate it into the cuts he wanted. A half-hour later, out in the swamp, Jud's rifle roared like a clap of thunder. Looking disgusted, Frosty departed to such peace and quiet as he might find under the porch. Andy glanced toward the swamp. Jud had shot. Therefore he had his buck. . . . In another twenty minutes, he appeared with it. It was a fair-sized three-year-old. Jud had slit the tendons in the hind legs, thrust the front ones through, fastened them with pegs, and was carrying his buck as Andy would have carried a packsack. But, though the buck probably weighed 140 pounds, Jud was not laboring nor was he the least bit strained. He paused again beside the porch. "Got one, huh?" Andy greeted him. "Yep." "Nice one, too." "Nice eatin'," Jud grunted. "I take it you know they's owls in the swamp, Andy?" "Owls?" "Cat owls," Jud said. "I see six. I'd of shot some but I didn't know as you'd of wanted me to." "Thanks, Jud." "Don't mention it," Jud said politely. He departed with his buck and Andy began to work furiously. "Cat owl" was a local term for great horned owl, and if Jud had seen six during the short time he'd been absent, they had not only invaded the swamp in force but their invasion had occurred since yesterday. Andy nicked his finger, muttered to himself and continued to work feverishly. One owl in the swamp was a threat. Six could mean only that game had already become scarce in other localities, and the owls were gathering in his swamp to find food. It was true that, in winter, much small game did seek a refuge in the swamp and, for that very reason, it had more than its winter-time quota of great horned owls and other predators. This early in the season, Andy's muskrats must be the very lure that was attracting them. He had feared just such an invasion, and now he must fight it. He wrapped the venison in flour sacking, hung the portions in his shed and closed the door behind him. Finished, he breathed a sigh of relief, took his .22 from its rack, filled the magazine, stuck a couple of extra boxes of cartridges in his pocket and started for the swamp. Frosty, who shuddered at the sight of a shotgun but did not mind the .22, came happily to join him. Andy was rational again. They could take up their partnership where it had been broken off. Tail erect and even whiskers seeming to quiver with joy, Frosty trotted by Andy's side. Andy set a direct course for the nearest trees. He searched eagerly, hoping he would not find what he feared he would, and optimism leaped in his breast when he saw nothing. Then an owl, a huge bird with a mighty spread of wings, labored up from a slough with a muskrat in its talons. Andy leveled his rifle, holding it steady, even while he tried to conquer the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Compared to some other birds, the owls are not swift fliers and this one was furthered slowed by the burden it carried. It was possible to pick it out of the air with a rifle, but Andy held his fire because, obviously, the owl intended to light in one of the trees. A sitting shot was not sporting, but there was no question of sport connected with this and a sitting shot was far more certain. The owl dipped gracefully toward a tree and Andy followed with the rifle sights. At exactly the right moment, he squeezed the trigger. The vicious little rifle spat its leaden death and the owl dropped limply. He lay tumbled on the ground, talons still imbedded in the muskrat, when Andy reached him. It was a grip of steel, so powerful that the boy had to use the point of his knife to disengage each talon separately. Andy skinned the still-warm muskrat, knowing as he did so that the pelt would bring less than a good price because the owl's talons had pierced it. But it was something salvaged. The next owl was a dodging gray shape that winged erratically over the swamp grass, more than six hundred feet away. Andy leveled his rifle, sighted and shot. He shot a second time . . . and a third. On the third shot, a gray feather detached itself from the bird and floated gracefully downwards. But the shot also warned the owl. He dipped out of sight. Hearing something in the grass that interested him, Frosty went to investigate. Andy strode grimly toward the next grove of trees. He scored a clean miss on an owl perched in a tree, then brought down one in flight. Quickly, he reloaded his little rifle. It was better than the shotgun for such hunting, partly because shotgun shells were so much more expensive and partly because the shotgun was limited in range. He would certainly have killed the owl in the tree had he had the shotgun, but probably he would have merely wounded the pair he had brought down and even owls deserved better than that. Far off, hopelessly out of range, Andy saw two owls in the hollow sycamore that overlooked the slough where the five muskrats lived. He stooped to crawl. When he was within rifle shot, he raised cautiously above the swamp grass—to see the sycamore empty. He muttered to himself. He did not think that he had frightened the owls, for they were incredibly bold. Doubtless they'd gone off to hunt, and almost surely they were hunting muskrats. Rising, Andy walked to the hollow sycamore and cradled the rifle in the crook of his arm while he leaned against it. Five minutes later, a muskrat emerged from an underwater burrow, surfaced and swam in little circles. Only his head and back broke water. He regarded Andy with beady little eyes. Although less than ten feet away, the muskrat considered himself safe because he was in the water. The owl came so silently and so eerily that, somehow, it seemed to have materialized out of thin air. Gliding over the slough, it took the swimming muskrat in both claws and never missed a wing beat as it flew on. Andy gasped. He leveled the rifle and shot five times, but the gathering dusk made his aim uncertain and again he missed. Andy's brain reeled. Naturally ferocious, the raiding owls were ten times as fierce and ten times as dangerous as they ever were otherwise because they were also desperately hungry. This one must have seen Andy, but the presence of an armed man had not prevented it from taking a muskrat that was not even a pebble's toss away. Andy glared at the darkening sky, as though his fierce will to hold back the night and let him continue hunting owls would somehow grant time for so long. But approaching night would not be stopped, and he could do nothing before another morning. However, the owls could and would hunt. All night long the muskrats in the swamp would be at their mercy—and they had no mercy! Andy trailed tiredly back to his house. He found Frosty on the porch, let him in and nibbled at a supper for which he had neither taste nor desire. Unless something came to his aid, he was ruined and he knew it. One man alone could not turn back the tide of owls. Given one more week, they would take every muskrat from every slough. Back in the swamp with daylight the next morning, Andy shot two owls almost before night's curtain lifted. Hunting, he got three more and missed four. Then, shortly before noon, the wind began to scream. Just before dusk, it lulled, and that night Andy looked happily at his frosted windows. He had to go outside to read the thermometer, but he'd have walked five miles to discover that it was twelve degrees below zero. The following morning, every pond and every slough wore a safe armor of ice. <hr style='width: 45%;' /> It was an extraordinary winter. Neither mild nor severe, it skipped the usual January thaw completely and lingered on almost as it had started. Except for the one severe cold snap that froze the swamp, the temperature dropped to zero or below only on a few scattered days. However, on two days alone did it climb into the fifties. Most of the time it lingered at a few degrees below or a few above the freezing point. The customary snows did not fall. The deepest, only about three inches, came shortly before the temperature reached the fifties and much of it melted then. Otherwise, there were only dustings of snow. Thus, though there was tracking most of the time, snowshoes were never needed. For Andy it was a wonderful, peaceful time, which was further distinguished by being The Winter of the Big Bonanza. Few of the town dwellers were so old-fashioned as to have coal furnaces. Strictly in tune with modern trends, they used oil or gas. But the ways of the forefathers are not that easily forsaken, and, though the town dwellers also considered this strictly in keeping with progress, a great many of them wanted fireplaces. They served no practical purpose because their houses were always warm enough anyhow. But the fireplaces did fill a spiritual need, and having them, the townsmen wanted fuel to burn in them. Naturally, nobody with a fireplace would consider burning anything except wood. A fuel-dealer in town had given the Casman brothers an order for 300 cords of fireplace wood, to be picked up at the Casman farm and paid for at six dollars a cord. Even though the same dealer was selling it in town for twelve dollars a cord, it was still a good deal. Jud and Ira, remembering that Andy had invited them to participate in his muskrat ranch on a share basis, invited him to do the same with their wood. Three men were needed for supplying the wood. The Casmans had several acres of yellow birch which they wanted to clear for additional pasture anyhow, also the horses to haul the poles and the machinery for sawing them. The Casmans were to keep one third of the payment. They would split the remaining two thirds three ways with Andy. Andy accepted happily, for he had already taken as many mink and fox pelts as he could safely take and leave enough for re-stocking. His trappings throughout the rest of the winter would have been confined to taking bobcats and weasels, upon both of which there was a bounty, and he'd have been lucky to earn one hundred dollars. Since his muskrats were safe beneath the ice, a routine patrol sufficed for the swamp. He could do that on Sunday. Anyway, he liked to cut wood. For the first week, armed with razor-sharp axes that were kept that way by frequent honing, the three of them attacked the grove of yellow birch. Then, while Ira and Andy set up the gasoline-powered buzz saw, Ira used his own horses to drag the wood in to them. When they had enough to keep them busy for a while, he felled and trimmed more trees alone. Except for Sundays, which the Casmans always observed, even though they did not do it in church, the trio worked hard every day from dawn to dusk. As a result, wood piled up fast. One afternoon, Andy glanced at the sun, calculated that they could work at least one more hour and picked up one end of a birch pole, while Ira took the other. Co-ordinating their actions perfectly, for they had been working together a long while, they swung it into the cradle. Ira had taken the saw end, and Andy was just as happy. The whirling saw, kept as sharp as the axes, could scream its way through a twelve-inch tree in a couple of clock ticks—and through a man's hand in considerably less time! But Ira, who had been handling the business end of a buzz saw ever since he'd been old enough to work, had yet to receive his first nick. The pair finished the log, took another, and at exactly the right time Jud came in from the wood lot. The three of them worked to arrange the tumbled pile of wood in neat cords, eight feet long by four feet high, and so well did they know what they were doing that, by the time they were finished, it lacked only a few minutes of being too dark to work any more. Ira solemnly regarded the results of their day's labor. "Twenty mo' cords to go," he announced. "We finish early nex' week." "Jest in time," Jud said. "Breakup's comin', an' them town folk won't want wood then." "How do you know the breakup's coming?" Andy challenged him. "My rheumatiz changed." "Twon't be much of a breakup," Ira murmured. "Ain't enough snow fo' that. I mistrust 'twill be a puny season' fo' crops, less'n we get a heap o' spring rains." "There'll be water in the swamp," Andy said. "Allus some theah," Ira conceded. "How's yo' mushrats doin', Andy?" Andy hid his instinctive smile. He'd been working with the Casmans all winter, and this was the first time either had asked about his muskrats. In the hills, a man's business was strictly his own. "I figure the owls cleaned out five colonies," Andy said, "and probably got an animal or two from others. But since I've been able to walk on the ice, I've found seven colonies that I hadn't even known about. They're on little bits of slough arms that I couldn't even reach before." "Any owls theah now?" "About the usual winter's supply. I haven't been shooting any since the freeze-up because they can't do any great damage. No sense in shooting anything at all for the sake of killing." "Tha's right," Jud agreed. "But won't they raise the dickens when the breakup comes?" "Not too much," Andy said. "Birds will be coming back and everything else will move more. The owls will scatter. Well, see you Monday." "Shuah thing," Jud said gravely. "Shuah thing," Ira echoed. Andy walked homeward and Frosty met him. For the first week, the big cat had accompanied his partner to the wood lot and happily explored new country while trees were felled. But, though Frosty did not mind the thudding of axes, he disliked the screeching buzz saw even more cordially than blasting rifles and shotguns. He was happy to stay near Andy nights and to accompany him on Sunday patrols into the swamp. They went together the next day, walking safely on ice and frozen earth. The five colonies that had been ravished—and Andy was sure that owls had raided them—were easy to locate. The tops of all muskrat houses protruded above the ice that locked them in, but these five had fallen into disrepair and the winds were scattering them. All the rest of the houses were firm and sound. The next week, Andy finished his job with the Casmans and, just as Jud had predicted, the breakup followed. It was no violent change but a soft and gentle thing. One day the temperature climbed to near-summer heights and remained there for three days. It wiped out the snow and presently it took the ice, too. Because there had been little snow and not much spring run-off, except for the thaw, there was almost no change in the swamp. Andy resumed his daily patrols. The owls were still present and, as Andy discovered when one plucked a rabbit from under his very nose, still ravenous. But muskrats that had been ice-bound for weeks were frantic for a taste of fresh food. They swarmed out of dens and houses to dig in the mud for anything succulent. Their very eagerness made them careless. Andy shot a bobcat with a muskrat in its mouth, found where a great horned owl had taken one, and a fox another. But there was no great wave of predators immediately. Another week elapsed before he knew definitely that something was seriously wrong. The sign left by digging muskrats was easy to see, and after a week, in eight separate colonies, there was not only no fresh sign but the houses were falling into disrepair. Andy redoubled his efforts, going into the swamp with daylight and staying until dark. This predator was a complete mystery. It left neither tracks nor sign, and the only evidence that it had struck at all was another colony that no longer contained muskrats. Andy, who had thought he knew everything there was to know about the swamp, gave up. He did not understand this, but Joe Wilson might be able to give him some good advice, for Joe was very wise. An hour before dark, Andy climbed the path leading to the road and struck out toward town. He had walked no more than half a mile when he saw a horseman coming toward him. It was Luke Trull, whose eyes were cold and whose smile was colder. He passed without speaking, but for a full two minutes Andy stood rooted. Then he turned slowly back toward his house. The Trull-Gates feud, with Luke and himself as sole participants, was about to be renewed, for, in addition to his usual disreputable clothing, Luke wore a muskrat-skin hat! <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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