Swamp Cat Part 9

The snake would strike and its swiftness equaled his own, but the kitten's anger increased. He had been challenged in his own territory.

He would accept that challenge, but not blindly. A born warrior, he was also a born strategist.

The snake, rattling continuously now, undulated its thick body into coils. But though its strike was lightning fast, otherwise it was a comparatively sluggish thing. Frosty feinted again.

He knew to the exact hundredth of an inch the length of his last feint and this one he deliberately shortened. The snake struck, its venom-filled fangs falling just short, and Frosty became master of the situation. Knowing precisely how far the snake could strike, he feinted in rapid succession and each time teased the snake into hitting at him.

Finally, recognizing an _impa.s.se_ and rattling a warning as it did so, the snake started crawling away. Frosty leaped. He landed exactly where he had intended to land, just behind the head, where the snake's thick body tapered to a thin neck, and he bit even as he landed. His teeth met and almost in the same motion he leaped away.

For an interested moment he watched the quivering snake, now stretched full length. There were no death throes and no writhing coils, for Frosty had done exactly as he had planned to do and severed the spine.

The reptile had died instantly. Forgetting the snake, Frosty padded on toward the doe.

Nearing her, he went into a stalk so stealthy and so silent that he crouched in the gra.s.s less than three feet away before she was aware of his presence. Her ears flicked forward and she opened alarmed eyes.

Recognizing no threat, she relaxed and again scratched her flank with her muzzle. Satisfied because he had traced the source of this sound, the kitten retraced, almost step for step, the path he had taken coming into the gra.s.s and he was at the edge of the clearing when Andy emerged from the house.

Frosty did not show himself. Despite his liking for his human companion, he would not rush to meet him, as a dog might have, unless he felt like it, and right now he did not feel that way. Setting out to explore this new land, he wanted to do it in his own time and way and, for the present, he cared for no company.

Waiting until Andy was out of sight, he skirted the swamp and stopped to look closely at the muskrats, which were still swimming about in the slough. The parent animals moved farther out and eleven of their young followed. The twelfth, whose b.u.mp of curiosity was bigger than his portion of good sense, raised in the water for a better look at this fascinating creature, then swam eagerly toward him. Head extended, nostrils quivering, eyes bright, he climbed out on the bank.

The kitten stared back haughtily. Bigger than the baby muskrat, he still was not hungry enough to hunt. Besides, obviously the muskrats were lesser creatures. Frosty considered them as belonging in almost the same category as the rabbits that almost always ran. He went around the slough and into the swamp.

The tall gra.s.s waved over his head, so that he could see only that which lay directly about him. Nor could he smell very much because the over-all dank odor of the swamp drowned slighter scents. A mink or fox would have detected them and sought out their sources, if they were interested enough to do so. A cat could not, but Frosty's matchless ears took the place of both eyes and nose. He heard the flutter of a bird's wing, marked it down and deliberated. Having fed, he'd still accept a choice tidbit should one come his way. He stalked the bird and found it in a patch of gra.s.s.

It was a sora. Coming here to feed on seeds, it had entangled one foot in a slim strip of wire-tough swamp gra.s.s and, in struggling to free itself, had succeeded only in tangling the other foot. Almost exhausted, it was able to do little save flutter its wings.

Frosty pounced upon the bird, killed it and ate as much as he wanted.

His belly filled, he sought a warm place and curled up to rest. But he was careful to choose a napping place roofed with interlaced tops of swamp gra.s.s. There were enemies in the air, but it stood to reason that they could not catch him if they were unable to see him.

In spite of the fact that he was hidden, at no time did he sleep so soundly that he was oblivious to what went on and again his ears served him. Something that splashed in a nearby slough had to be a leaping fish; swimming muskrats seldom splashed or did anything else to attract attention to themselves. From far off came a loud noise; one of the dead swamp trees had finally toppled.

Frosty alerted himself only when he heard a sound he did not know. It was not loud but neither was it especially muted, as though some small creature that did not care whether or not it was seen moved through the swamp. At length it arose near the remains of the sora. Silent as a shadow, Frosty stalked forward. Even before he reached what was left of the bird, he heard something eating.

He looked through an aperture in the gra.s.s to see a creature approximately the size of a large cat, contentedly feasting on the remains of the sora. It was l.u.s.trous-black, except for a V-shaped patch of white on its head that became two white stripes which ran to the base of its tail. This silky tail was heavily furred, the feet were short and stubby. Frosty stared with vast curiosity.

Suddenly, and almost without visible motion, he flattened himself where he was and held perfectly still. A day-cruising great horned owl, which Frosty had seen at all only because he was wholly alert, floated in to seize the feeding animal. The owl winged low over the swamp with his prey.

Frosty sneezed and raced violently away, for suddenly the air was nauseous with stink so thick that a knife might almost have cut it.

Obviously the owl didn't mind at all, but to Frosty it was a repulsive odor. However, he had learned something else; no matter where they were encountered or what they were doing, skunks were better left alone.

After running a hundred yards, Frosty continued at a fast walk. The air still reeked and he wanted to get away from the stench. As soon as he had gone far enough so that there was only faint evidence of the unfortunate skunk's fate, he resumed prowling.

The swamp interested him greatly and he wanted to learn as much as possible about it. Because exploration was currently more fascinating than fighting, he detoured around another rattlesnake and continued on his way. He mounted a little rise that was literally honeycombed with the burrows of striped gophers and stopped to watch.

Flitting from their burrows, the gophers were feasting upon a veritable inundation of gra.s.shoppers that had come among them. Moving like an animated streak, one of them would pounce upon a gra.s.shopper and at once dodge back to its burrow or into the shelter of some huckleberry brush that grew upon the knoll. The wise little animals never exposed themselves for more than a few seconds at a time, for they knew too well the many perils that threatened.

As Frosty watched the gophers, disaster struck them.

Another rattlesnake, lying like a strip of carelessly discarded velvet upon the little rise, struck a gopher when it paused nearby to s.n.a.t.c.h up a gra.s.shopper. Forgetting his gra.s.shopper, the stricken animal bounced toward his burrow. But he no longer moved like a streak. The injected venom made itself felt almost at once, and instead of ducking into his refuge, the gopher crawled down it.

After a moment, in no hurry at all and following his quarry by the scent it left on the ground, the snake moved sluggishly on the gopher's trail, finally disappearing down the burrow which the stricken creature had entered.

Frosty circled the little rise and went on. He was far too well-fed even to think of hunting the gophers, but the colony was something to remember when he should be hungry. Any rodent at all was not only acceptable but desirable food.

Coming to a slough, Frosty slunk like a wraith along its edge and sank down to watch a baby muskrat. Visible only from the bank upon which the kitten crouched, hidden from every other direction by a curl of overhanging gra.s.s, the youngster was busily engaged in digging succulent bulbs from the mud on the bank's far side. Thus Frosty learned what even Andy had not yet discovered.

This baby belonged to the cautious pair that knew so well how to protect themselves, and evidently he had inherited his parents' caution. Already antic.i.p.ating another litter, the parents were separating themselves from the first one. The muskrats were doing exactly as Andy had hoped they'd do and spreading out.

Little interested, Frosty resumed his travels and found himself on a point of land that jutted into the slough. He paused, looking at the six feet of water that lay before him. He could not jump it and he would never swim unless forced to do so, therefore he did the only thing he could do and retraced his steps. Continuing around the slough, he came to a blanket of tangled weeds that covered it and crossed on them.

Anything heavier, or even heavier-footed, would have fallen through.

Frosty not only proceeded in perfect safety but knew he was safe.

He came to a little stream, one of the few clear-running streams in the swamp, and watched a mother mallard and her brood of seven swim happily there. Frosty did not molest them. No wanton killer, he would hunt only when he wanted to eat. But the mallard family was something else to remember should he be hungry and in their vicinity.

When night fell, he was still in the swamp and entirely unconcerned about it. This was, perhaps, even a little more to his liking for he was a little more a creature of night than day.

Frosty halted suddenly. He was in an area which, being heavily browsed by swamp deer, had comparatively short gra.s.s. Deer moved about, chewing noisily and now and then blowing to clear their nostrils of a bit of dust. But there was something more and the kitten strained to discover its ident.i.ty.

He saw the deer more clearly than a human being would have but not as clearly as he himself would have seen them by day. Though his night vision was good, he had no magic lens that pierced the darkness and made everything easily visible. Besides the deer and the chewed-down gra.s.s, he could see nothing. He could hear only the deer moving, chewing, blowing, and the soft murmur of the wind that never seemed to cease. He still knew that danger threatened.

The knowledge came to him, probably, through a very faint sound that tickled his built-in ear antennae, without identifying itself and without even seeming like an audible noise. Had he had any clear idea of what he faced now, he would have known what to do about it. Lacking any idea whatsoever, he could only be careful.

He turned away from the sound and went back into tall gra.s.s. Once there, where he was at least partially s.h.i.+elded from great horned owls, he broke into a fast run. But it was not a panicky run. He had set out to elude something which he realized existed, and that was all he knew about it. No instinct could possibly help him and blind flight could lead to nothing but trouble. In a situation such as this, his only hope lay in relying on planned intelligence.

Frosty halted after running three hundred yards and turned to face the direction from which he had come. He had scurried into a part of the swamp which he had not yet visited. This was an error, and almost instantly he knew it was an error. Every tree, clump of brush and the various kinds of gra.s.s through which he had already prowled were clearly mapped in his brain. He should have gone back there because, in the event of an emergency, he would have known exactly what lay around him and precisely how he might take advantage of the terrain. But it was too late to turn now.

He could hear nothing save the wind, a group of barred owls talking to each other in some of the dead trees, and suddenly, far off, the death shriek of a rabbit upon which a mink had pounced. He still knew there was danger, and that it was on his trail. He ran on.

Suddenly he came to a slough, a thirty-foot-wide stretch of water whose surface eerily reflected the dim light that filtered from stars. Six feet out, a group of dead trees reared skeleton trunks and rattled their bare bones of branches. Frosty turned again.

He was not trapped, for he could run in either direction along the slough's bank, but that would be blind running and he did not know where it might lead him. Now was the time for planning, and before he did anything else, he wanted to know from exactly what he fled. Suddenly he did know.

It was another coyote, for presently he heard it, and it was on his trail. He could not know that it was a young beast which, catching the scent of a cat and eager to renew the age-old cat and dog fight, had flung itself pell-mell along that scent. Frosty made ready to fight.

He saw the coyote emerge from the gra.s.s and run headlong at him.

Crouching, prepared to spring, his nerve broke suddenly. Turning, he leaped blindly for the trunk of the nearest tree, missed by eighteen inches, fell into the slough and went under.

Surfacing, he knew only seething fury. Water was the most distasteful of all places to him. Being forced ignominiously to fall into it roused all his warrior blood, but even now he did not attack blindly.

Striking for the bank, he saw the eager coyote waiting for him and marked its position exactly. When his paws found a footing, he sprang at once and his body arched into the air. Again he went to the head, sc.r.a.ping with all four paws, even while he sliced with his teeth. The startled coyote--a veteran would have known exactly what to do--stood for one brief second. Then it gave a startled yelp, unseated its attacker with a fling of its head and streaked away.

Frosty waited long enough to a.s.sure himself that his enemy was not coming back. Once he was positive of that, he meticulously groomed his wet fur and started toward the house.

7

THE SECOND PLANTING