Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 27

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The routine of camp life, where one is obliged to do all the cooking and other work, besides providing food, is ordinarily enough to keep the camper pretty busy. The boys usually found enough to do with their hunting, fishing, cooking, and other work, but sometimes in these long Alaska days, where for almost twenty-four hours the sun shone and the darkest night was scarcely more than an hour or so of twilight, they found time to wander around their island in exploring expeditions.

At times they climbed one peak or another almost to the top, but from the loftiest eminences they attained they could see nothing of the interior of the island except more and more sharp and rugged peaks thrusting themselves up — a mountain region which, indeed, is little known by any white man, or even by the natives, who rarely go far inland.

A customary journey for them was along one or the other of the river valleys which came down to their bay, the mouths of which they could reach in calm weather easily by a short journey in the dory. Their favorite valley was that running back from what they called “Gull Rocks.” It was traversed by a good salmon river and was much frequented by wild animals. As it chanced, they did not run across any more bear, although continually here and elsewhere they saw signs where these great animals had done their work in salmon-fishing — heaps of bones where scores of fish had been partially stripped of their flesh.

On one particular day, as the young adventurers passed up this valley on an all-day tramp, they found the salmon heaps especially abundant, and observed that the numbers of crows and eagles were more than usually great.

“I think it’s a new run of fish coming in,” said Rob. “Probably the ‘humpies’ are beginning to run. They’re bigger than the red salmon, which we’ve been having so far. They’re better to eat, too; even the bears know that. We’d better look out or we may run across more bear in here than we want. See here where this big fellow was eating last night. I suppose he has gone back into the mountains somewhere by now. And here is where some foxes have come down and eaten what the bears left; and the crows are waiting to eat what the foxes left. And look there, at that fish-eagle! Old Mr. Osprey is working for his breakfast now.”

He pointed to a large, grayish bird which was circling above them, its neck bent down as it peered intently at the surface of the stream below.

“Watch him!” said Jesse. “There!”

All at once the osprey, which had been uttering a low sort of whistle, folded its wings and darted down, swift as a flash, at an angle of about forty-five degrees. With a resounding smack, and in a cloud of white spray, it disappeared from view beneath the surface of the water; but instantly, with a vast flapping, it rose and fought to get wing-hold on the air. Taking flight only with the utmost effort, the boys saw that it held in its talons a big salmon whose weight was all it could manage to bear away.

“Well, what do you think of that?” said Jesse. “Didn’t he do it easy? I should think he would break his back, hitting the water that hard.”

“Yes,” commented John; “if a fellow dives from a place ten feet high it’s fall enough for him; but this fish-hawk came from two or three hundred feet up in the air. They must be put together pretty strong or they’d smash themselves. Look at him go!”

Uttering now its shrill whistle, the osprey rose higher and higher in a wide circle, endeavoring to carry off its prize. Something seemed to agitate the bird, and a moment later the boys saw what this was. High up above, in still larger circles, was a larger bird — a male bald eagle, which now drew into position directly above the osprey.

“Now watch, and you will see some fun,” said Rob. “No wonder Mr. Osprey is mad; he’s going to lose his fish — that’s what’s going to happen to him. Watch that eagle!”

The two birds kept their relative positions — the osprey, either angry or frightened, still struggling to get away with its prey; the eagle, easily circling above it, itself now and then uttering a shrill cry — a scream-like whistle that could be heard at a great distance.

At last the osprey gave up the struggle and attempted to escape. With difficulty it detached one foot from the fish, which now fell down at full length and disarranged the osprey’s flight. Finally it succeeded in shaking the talons of the other foot free. The osprey made a swift side dash and left the salmon to fall, at a height of, perhaps, one hundred and fifty feet or so.

The eagle, which seemed to be twice that high above the ground, now performed a feat which the boys could never understand. They did not see how he could fall much faster than the fish; yet before their eyes they saw the great bird half fold its wings and dart down swift as a flash. Before the salmon had struck the ground the eagle struck it, fair, with both feet, and, never touching the earth itself, swung in a wide, low circle, itself master by robbery of the prize which the labor of the fish-hawk had won.

“Look at that old thief!” said Rob. “It’s a funny thing to me that an eagle can’t very often catch fish for himself, plentiful as they are here. Yet you’ll notice that if an eagle is on a tree directly over the salmon he can’t start quick enough to catch a fish — it’ll always swim away from him. They catch some in shallow water, but they don’t seem to be very good fishermen after all. A bald-headed eagle would rather steal a fish from an osprey than to catch one for himself, and we’ve just seen how it’s done. Watch the old thief!”

The eagle, apparently contented with his morning’s work, leisurely rose and flapped on his way toward a clump of small cotton-woods. At the summit of a small tree he perched, holding the fish under his feet and uttering now some short, shrill cries, which the boys could hear answered from the heap of brush which they saw was the nest prepared by these birds. There were scores of these rude nests scattered along the timber flats.

“Let’s go and see what they do now,” suggested Rob.

As they approached they saw the male bird clumsily flap down to the nest, where it dropped the fish. The hen eagle fell upon it with short, savage screams and began to tear it apart. They also saw, now and again bobbing above the rim of the nest, the heads of two young eagles.

Rob cast a critical look at the trunk of the tree. “I can climb that tree,” said he, at last, “and I have a mind to turn the tables on that old thief up there.”

He pointed to the male eagle, which was now flapping in short circles above the top of the tree, uttering hoarse cries of anger.

“You’d better look out,” said John; “old Mother Eagle will pick your eyes out if you’re not careful.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Rob; “but I’ll take care. Anyhow, here goes!” So saying, he threw off his coat and began to ascend the tree, a feat which grew easier as he reached the wide-spreading limbs. In a few minutes he stood almost under the nest. Here he kept his left arm in front of his face and made feints with a piece of branch at the mother eagle, which indeed came dangerously close to him. The boys below began to flop their arms and throw up their coats. At length both of the parent birds, contrary to what might be believed or may have been written regarding them, turned tail like cowards and abandoned their young to their fate. They perched on trees a hundred yards or so distant, and watched to see what would go forward. Rob worked his way on up the tree and peered curiously over the edge of the wretched brush-heap which served as the nest. Here he saw two large, ungainly young birds, not yet able to fly, but able to spit, scratch, and flap their wings. Getting a good foothold on a supporting branch, Rob made several attempts to get hold of the young birds. Finally he succeeded in getting one by the neck, and with a jerk threw it out so that it fell flapping to the ground. Skookie would have killed it at once, but the others stopped him. A few moments later they were owners of both these birds, and Rob had rejoined his companions at the foot of the tree.

“I’ll tell you what,” said he, as he wiped the perspiration from his face; “let’s see if we can’t make pets of these eagles. We nearly always have more than we can eat, and it’s the same sort of food these birds are used to; so why shouldn’t we tie them up and keep them around the hut? Maybe they’ll scare the crows and ravens away from our fish.”

“That’s a fine idea,” said John. “We’ll just try that. I had a couple of hawks once for pets. They ate a great lot, and they fought you, too, for a long while. My hawks used to lie on their backs and grab me by the hand every time I tried to feed them. I suppose these eagles will be worse yet.”

“Anyhow, we’ll try them,” said Rob. “Let’s wrap them up in our coats and take them down to the boat.”

This they did, and although the old eagles followed them for two or three miles, sometimes coming rather close, and frequently uttering their wild calls of anger, the boys had no trouble in making away with their young captives. The birds seemed rather stupid than otherwise, and were as ready to eat food from human hands as from the talons of their parents. They did not really become tame, but, having learned their source of food, in a few days became so indifferent to human presence that they would only ruffle up their scanty crests and beat their wings a little when approached. They never allowed one to put a hand on their heads, and, indeed, were very far from being friendly. Their presence about the camp, however, did serve in part to mitigate the nuisance of crows and ravens, which continually hovered about, trying to steal from the scaffold where the boys kept their supplies of meat and fish. All boys like pets, and these found their strange captives interesting enough at least to help pass the time.