Read Ebook: Chinook the Cinnamon Cub by Chaffee Allen DaRu Peter Illustrator

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Ebook has 306 lines and 25264 words, and 7 pages

Chinook stirred in his sleep, and the little mother trembled. Would Father Tree Mouse be able to do as he had planned when that monstrous cub awoke?

MR. AND MRS. TREE MOUSE

Now as anyone understands who knows much about meadow mice, they nest on the ground, and they are the one kind of game a bear can always count on when the roots and berries are all gone and the trout streams frozen.

Once upon a time, ever and ever so many thousands of years ago, there was a mouse who was wiser than the rest. When bears and bobcats pursued her, she took refuge in the tree tops. One night it seemed as if every creature in the woods was after her, and when she had reached the snug crotch of a high limb where she could hide from them, she decided it was wiser to stay there all night. The next morning for breakfast she sampled the bark, and to her surprise, found the flavor first rate. Then she began to ask herself why she need ever come down at all. She trilled for her mate, for she had a sweet little birdlike voice when she sang, and they discussed the situation. They had just been thinking of building a nest where the babies would be safe when they came, and they finally decided to build it away up high in the tree.

Those babies, after having grown up in the tree top, saw no reason why they should go back to the ground either, and they too built homes in the tree tops, so high that bears and bobcats never thought of looking for them there. Where before they had eaten grass and other things that they could find on the ground, now they nibbled bark and spruce fans, and the tender butt ends of the pine needles. That way the whole tribe came to live in trees. Their relatives who had stayed on the ground all got caught, and there were only the families of those who had become arboreal. Now their neighbors were birds and squirrels, and when they wanted to go exploring, they could run out along one branch till it crossed the branch of another tree. In time Mother Nature changed their little furry coats from the gray-brown of the soil to the red-brown of the Oregon tree trunks, so that their enemies could not see them when they crouched along the limbs. She changed their teeth to stronger ones that could gnaw the bark more easily, and she gave them the kind of eyes that can see in the dark, because when the pretty little fellows went to feeding among the greenery, their rufous coats showed up too plainly by daylight. Finally, their Great Mother found that they needed longer tails than they had on the ground to help them keep their balance when they had to leap from branch to branch. And after Mother Nature had done all that for them, they found that they were so safe that they could build great, roomy nests in the very tree tops where they could raise their children. Sometimes they found an abandoned squirrel's nest that made a first rate framework, and converted it into a palace of many rooms. These they carpeted beautifully with cedar fans and bits of dry moss and lichen for the babies to creep around on. The young bachelor mice were generally satisfied with one-room cabins away out on the tips of the limbs where they could come and go as they pleased, but as the young people became more experienced in nest building, and as they found that they needed larger quarters, they would often build a whole colony of nests around some tree trunk, with the different apartments resting on different branches, but with one main hallway that ran around the trunk so that they could visit back and forth without going out of doors. As the dust blew over these nests of sticks and spruce fans, and the rain moistened the dust, and the seeds of tiny plants blew on this rich soil, the apartment house would come to look like a bit of the ground beneath, and on cold nights the thick walls would keep out the rain and the wind and make it all as snug and homelike as anything you can imagine.

That is how Mr. and Mrs. Tree Mouse came to be living so high above the ground, in the branches of this great pine tree. They really preferred spruce, because the bark has a better flavor, and, too, because most of their friends lived in the spruce trees; but when Douglas, the squirrel, had abandoned this great, roomy nest, it had seemed like too good a bargain to let go, and they had promptly moved in.

They were really awfully frightened when they saw Chinook come scrambling so near, for they had heard him tell Douglas how he would eat him alive if he ever caught him. The pretty little red mother mouse had just gotten her four babies asleep when Chinook finished his nap, and with a yawn and a stretch, began looking about him to see where he was.

Now was the time for Father Tree Mouse to distract his attention, for any moment, the cub might start investigating the nest. With a high-pitched little squeak, the brave mite started to run along the limb just below, but he scuttled so fast that Chinook decided it was no use trying to catch him, and just sat there blinking sleepily in the sunshine. At that, Father Tree Mouse came back, and this time he pretended to have a broken leg, which made him limp along so slowly that even Chinook might have caught him. Just barely out of reach of the little bear's barbed paw, Father Tree Mouse limped down the tree trunk and out along the limb. This time the cub ran after him so fast that Father Mouse's heart thumped with terror. But he must get that bear clear out of their tree, and at last he dropped to the ground and raced madly across an open space to another tree, with Chinook close at his heels. His ruse was working altogether too well, for the little bear all but clapped his paw on him once. He did get the tip of his long tail. But Father Tree Mouse remembered a knothole he had seen one day when out exploring, and straight for that knothole he darted, tumbling into it not an instant too soon. For a time Chinook watched the knothole for him to come out, but by and by his mother called him, and when he came back, Father Tree Mouse had left and gone back home.

"Do you know," he told Mother Tree Mouse, "we ought to find some nice, big knothole and move into it before that bear comes back." And before another night had passed, they had found one, and moved the babies.

MAZAMA THE MYSTERIOUS

Sometimes in the black of night, the cubs would be awakened by a weird, unearthly screech, but peer as they might from the mouth of their den into the shadowy woods they could never see what manner of creature it could be. When they asked Mother Brown Bear, she said it would be better for them to watch and find out for themselves. Mother Brown Bear wanted them to learn to use their wits for they were going to need them, in their life of hunting and being hunted.

Sometimes the cubs thought they saw two great round eyes gleaming at them in the moonlight, high up in the branches of a tree. Weird voice and gleaming eyes, that was their first impression of Mazama the Mysterious, whose hunting call startled every mouse till its trembling set the grasses waving and showed Mazama where it was hiding.

One night Mother Brown Bear decided to take Snookie and Chinook on a mousing expedition. Now the mice which were her favorite game were the stupid burrow mice who live in tunnels underground and often destroy whole crops for the farmers. The forest floor is threaded with these tunnels, whose entrances are hidden beneath stumps and fallen logs, or come out beneath overhanging rocks; and the moment danger threatens, into one of these tunnels they will pop, and run and run, away down underneath the sod. But a bear's sharp nose can smell a mouse even when it is hiding underground, and if he cannot catch it in the open, he can sometimes dig it out, though he has to be pretty spry, because while he is digging at one point, the mouse may be running to some other branch of his tunnel. That night Mother Brown Bear wasn't so anxious to catch mice herself as she was to teach the cubs. But though Snookie and Chinook raced joyously after every red-backed burrow mouse they saw, till they had chased them all into their secret tunnels, they caught not one of the fleet-footed fellows.

Just as Mother Brown Bear was ready to start for home, another terrifying sound pierced the stillness, and it was startlingly near. The sound came from behind them, and the breeze was in the wrong direction to tell them what it was. It was the screeching, catlike voice that betrayed its owner. "Is it Cougar?" trembled Snookie.

"No, come and I'll show you who it is," and Mother Brown Bear began circling till they could approach the newcomer with the wind in their faces, Chinook wriggled his nose inquiringly. "It's a cat, even if it isn't Cougar," he decided.

"Yes, it's a cat, but no one we need be afraid of. It's Paddy-paws, the bobcat. He's a great mouser. Better watch him: you can learn a lot from the way he goes about it," Mother Brown Bear told them softly.

"He might catch us too," shivered Snookie, clutching at her mother with both arms.

"Not now that you've grown as big as he is."

"Is he a good fighter, Mother?" asked Chinook.

"He can put up one of the best fights of any animal of his size, if his life or his kittens are in danger. But he never courts trouble, and he will leave you alone if you leave him alone."

"Huh!" sniffed Chinook. "I'll bet he isn't any better mouser than I'm going to be."

"Don't boast," said Mother Brown Bear. "It would be better to watch and see how he does it."

"Is he a better mouser than Mazama?"

"Watch and see," was all Mother Brown Bear would tell them.

Once when the Ranger's Boy had caught a glimpse of Paddy-paws crouched along the limb of a tree, he had at first taken him for merely the largest and handsomest tiger cat he had ever seen. "Pussy, pussy!" he had called ingratiatingly, wondering how a house cat came to be in the woods.

"You're certainly not very friendly," thought the Boy, "but I suppose it's because you're afraid. You are trying to frighten me with all that hissing."

At first the cubs could only see that something moved stealthily, body held close to the ground, through the shadows of the tree trunks. Then as the big cat pounced on a mouse, they could see that he was a handsome, tawny fellow with spots on his sides. Then Mazama gave another screech.

The bobcat answered with an angry yowl. "Keep out of my hunting grounds!" he yelled at Mazama, and began sniffing about till he discovered a big mouse hole. Crouched there ready to pounce the minute its tenant showed his face, his attention was distracted by another mouse, who ran across the open, and with one leap he was upon it with a pitiless barbed paw. But Mazama had also been after that mouse, and the same instant Paddy caught it by the tail, the great owl snapped his beak in the mouse's neck.

"How much better," pointed out Mother Brown Bear, "not to have scrapped over one miserable mouse. Now they're both hurt. And there are a million mice left to catch."

Paddy-paws ran away into the shadows, perhaps to massage, with moistened paw, the stinging scratch on his ear.

"He's feeling real scrappy tonight," laughed Chinook. "But he sure is 'some mouser.'"

LOST IN THE FOG

August came, with its hot sun and the salt-smelling white fog from the ocean. Mother Brown Bear decided to take the cubs on a trip high among the cool mountain peaks. "You know Chinook means snow-eater," she told her son. "We must see if the name fits. When the warm West winds come in spring and melt the snow, the Indians call it the Chinook. And when the first of their tribe named himself, he took a bite of snow. They even call these big salmon that come from the sea to spawn the Chinook salmon, because every spring they swim so far up these icy streams."

"Snow would taste good today," panted the little bear, "but I thought it only came in winter."

"Away up on the high peaks," his mother told him, "there is snow all the year around. But you are going to see even more exciting things than summer snow before we have finished our trip."

It was strange, starting out in the fog. Though the gray mist shut off all the way before him, and Chinook could hardly see a tree trunk right ahead, he could tell it was there by the message his wonderful little nose gave him. He could tell even better in this moist air than he had been able to in dry weather, and he could tell the difference between a pine tree and a spruce tree as easily as the Ranger's Boy could have told, with his eyes shut, whether they were going to have onions or cabbage for dinner.

The woods were strangely still today. The birds had little heart to sing when, for all they could see, some enemy might be creeping up behind them; for birds have to depend on their eyes more than their noses. As the cubs padded along after their mother, the scent of whose warm fur led the way, Chinook paused to sniff a delicious odor that was new to him. Following his nose, he presently came to a swampy place where his feet sank into the moist ground and his face was brushed by tiger lilies. Now a lily means something very different to a bear from what it does to a bee or a boy. It was the onionlike bulbs at their roots that interested Mother Brown Bear's young hopeful. It was the lily he had smelled, and that made his mouth water. In another instant, without once calling to tell his mother what had become of him, he started digging them up with his claws and gobbling them down, till his furry face was streaked with mud and his sides were rounded.

After he had eaten all the lily bulbs he could possibly hold, he began to wonder if his mother and Snookie were waiting for him. More likely they had not even missed him. Now his stomach, which was used to very little besides the warm milk from which he had not yet been weaned, began hurting dreadfully. The little bear whimpered, but he didn't dare make much of a noise after what his mother had told him about Cougar, the California lion, and his fondness for having bear cub for breakfast. On all sides Chinook could see nothing but gray fog. My, how his stomach ached! And he was lost from the great, wise mother who always knew how to make his troubles disappear. What if Cougar were hiding there in the fog, ready to pounce upon him as Paddy-paws pounced on the mice? Slowly it came to him that there was no one to come to the rescue, unless he rescued himself, and he set his wits to work. Why, of course! Why hadn't he thought before that all he had to do was to follow his own trail back to where it crossed the one his mother had left for him to follow! For a bear, like most four-footed folk, has little scent glands in his feet, and everywhere he goes, he leaves a trace of his own peculiar perfume on the ground. It isn't often strong enough for a boy to detect, but a cat, or a dog, or a bear, or a mouse can tell it easily. So around and around went the little lost bear, retracing every step of the way he had come through the mystic maze that was the lily swamp, till at last he came out on the trail where Mother Brown Bear had left her big footprints. With a happy squeal he raced ahead. His mother was just coming back for him; but to his hurt surprise she only gave him a sound spank with her paw, and growled for him to come along, quick! But when he told her about the stomach ache, she stopped and hunted around with her nose in the fog until she had found a certain little red mushroom. "Eat that," she told him, "and you'll soon feel better."

Chinook obediently bit off the top of the toadstool, but instantly wished he hadn't, for it had the most puckery, peppery taste, not at all like those he had sampled before. He didn't want to swallow such medicine, but she insisted. Then for a few minutes he felt worse than ever, But as soon as he got over feeling seasick and the lily bulbs had come up the way they had gone down, he began to feel better. But it was a meek little bear who promised never again to sample anything his mother had not told him to eat.

For a while the cubs raced merrily along, while Mother Brown Bear kept up a lively clip. But as they climbed more and more steeply over the canyon walls, their feet felt heavier and their breath came shorter. After a while they reached an altitude where the fog did not follow, but lay like a cloud in the canyon beneath them. Up here, above the fog belt, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the world was bright with the green of fir trees and the pink and blue of wild flowers that had a mild sweetish taste. Puffy white clouds sailed slowly across the deep blue of the sky, and the air was so cool and bracing that the cubs forgot their fatigue and started playing tag.

Then a terrifying thing happened. The ground, which had always been so firm beneath their feet, began to rock with a sidewise motion that fairly made them dizzy. One long quiver, and the earth ceased quaking, but it was their first earthquake, and the cubs did not know what might happen next. Their mother explained it to them.

Away down deep underground, she told them, it was not solid rock and earth, but steam from the subterranean fires that sometimes spouted out of the volcanic peaks. It was this steam that made the ground rock, out there on the Pacific Coast. Once within her memory there had been a mountain, that white-topped one they could see far ahead, that had spouted red fire into the night, for it was a volcano, and there had been an eruption. And even though that had happened a hundred miles away, it had shaken the ground so hard that the rocks had gone sliding down the mountainsides with a noise like thunder, and in some places the earth had cracked right open for ever so many feet.

"Will that ever happen again?" asked Snookie, her eyes round with awe.

"What has happened once may always happen again," was all Mother Brown Bear could tell her. "If we do have a big earthquake, we must run right out into the open, because it may shake our den to pieces."

Little did she dream that the day might come when the cubs would be glad to remember her advice.

TEAM WORK

As the three bears crossed the shallow head of the river, whose course they had been following up the mountainsides, from the grass almost under their feet leapt what at first glimpse they took to be a mammoth mouse.

Of course they chased it. Soon they noticed that it ran very differently from the mice they had known. Instead of scuttling along on all fours, with its long tail streaming out behind, this one gave mammoth leaps, and its tail was just a bunch of brown fur. Then they noticed what long ears it had, and what broad hind feet. "It's a hare," signalled Mother Brown Bear, "a 'snowshoe rabbit.'"

The big brown hare raced so fast that it was soon out of sight; then instead of staying safely away, back it came circling, to stand on its hind legs with its long ears pointed forward to catch the sounds these strange newcomers were making, and its paws folded on its furry chest. The minute it caught sight of the pursuing cubs, it leapt away again with such great bounds that the bears again lost sight of it.

"You'd never catch it that way in a million years," Mother Brown Bear laughed, her black eyes twinkling as the cubs returned.

"Why not?" Chinook demanded. "Let's wait until it comes back, and have another try."

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