The White Czar (Hawkes)/Chapter 13
When the White Czar found himself transferred from the plank cage in which he had lived upon shipboard to the permanent den at the park, he was better suited than he had been in the cage.
The den was much more commodious, and it had the additional advantage of containing a swimming pool. After three or four days he enjoyed the pool greatly. But his attitude towards it at first had been very strange. He would lie upon his rock platform and look at the water for hours. Finally he reached down very carefully with his great white paw and touched it. Then he thrust his arm in to the shoulder. Even then he did not venture into the water until he had tested it by degrees. The truth was he was thinking of his last terrible experience in the water when the rope had been thrown about his neck, and he had been dragged so mercilessly after the motor boat. Also his experience floating about in the cage on the Atlantic had tended to make him suspicious of water. Water in which he had always so revelled.
Finally however he was playing about in his pool and disporting himself on the rocky shelf in his den with a playfulness that was almost grotesque in so large an animal.
But it must not be imagined that the White Czar was satisfied with his lot, or that he was contented to settle down for the rest of his life in this twenty-five by twelve den. Not he.
He remembered too well the freedom of the broad icefloe and the low lying barrens along the coast. He had seen too much of the sparkling, tingling Arctic Ocean to ever rest in a stifling prison like this.
He simply made the best of his hard conditions and bided his time. Few wild animals which have been captured when full grown, as was the White Czar, ever become used to confinement. They may look very tame and well content. But behind this seeming content and docility is a terrible rage and hidden fire that will some day break out and cost some one his life, or else the escape of the wild creature at the first possible moment.
The White Czar was a great favorite with the children who swarmed each day about his den to watch him playing in his pool or stretching his great muscles on the rocks. No matter how small the cage of a wild animal is, he always takes the proper amount of exercise each day by stretching himself. So it was with the Czar. If he ever got a chance to run for his life and his freedom, his muscles must not be stiff.
The visit of Oumauk and Eiseeyou to the den each day was a great comfort to the bear. He learned to time their coming, so that he would always be standing at the bars watching for them when they arrived. But his affection was all for Oumauk. Eiseeyou he had viewed with a suspicion ever since the day when he had sat in the stern of the motor boat and watched the cruel rope almost choke the life out of him. He did not fully connect his capture with the Eskimo, but in a dim sort of way he imagined that he was a party to it.
The White Czar might have lived the rest of his life in the den, admired by the children and with plenty to eat and comfortable quarters; with everything but that priceless thing he most prized, his freedom, had not a strange event intervened in his behalf.
The man who cared for the bear's den, including another den in which were two large black bears, and also for the wolf and fox dens, as well as the deer park, was a Scotchman named McAndrews.
He had general charge, but he was assisted by an Italian of hot temper and treacherous disposition, named Tony Garibaldi—a good name for a bad man.
It was during the second year of the great war, and wages in all departments of labor were very high. But Tony was seemingly not satisfied, although he was getting a large wage. So he went to the superintendent and asked for more pay.
The superintendent told him that he was not earning what he was then receiving and if his wages were changed in any way, it would be to scale them down. At this Tony became insolent and the superintendent fired him.
Tony, who had really been well pleased with his present wage, was furious and vowed vengeance. The form that his revenge took quite amazed the officials of the park the next morning.
The night following Tony's discharge, the White Czar lay upon his stone platform peacefully sleeping. The day had been very hot and he was tired, not with any exercise, but with the confinement and the heat. Presently he was aroused by hearing a noise near his den. He opened his eyes and raised his great head. The dark, little man who cleaned out his den each morning was at the bars.
Had he come to clean out the den? He had never done that at night.
The White Czar was not sure. But he stretched himself and plunged into his pool. If the den was to be cleaned, he would be clean also.
When he climbed back on to his platform, he was much amazed to discover that the large door through which the men always entered his den was open. It was wide open, and the man who he had supposed was to clean the den was standing several rods away.
At first the White Czar thought his eyes must be deceiving him, so he went over and poked the door with his nose and smelled of it. It certainly was open. But more than that. A breath of freedom, the wind from the out of doors, free and untrammeled was blowing through it. It was a north wind and it smelled of water.
A thrill went through the great beast. Very cautiously he thrust his head through the door. It did not catch him as he had half expected. So he thrust his shoulders through and then passed outside. He stretched himself and then reared on his hind legs and looked over the fence that surrounded his den. The Italian was watching him. But when a second later the great bear vaulted lightly over the fence, the Italian took to his heels and ran as though his life depended on his flight. He ran so far and so fast that he was never seen in the city again.
But the White Czar paid no attention to him. He was looking up at the starry heavens and smelling the free, fresh wind. He looked this way and that, and finally decided. He would go towards the wind. This was a very wise course on his part for it would lead him through three deserted streets to the great river.
It was two o'clock in the morning. The early traffic had not yet begun. At the entrance to the first street the great bear looked warily down its strange, straight pavements and saw it was deserted. So, with a shambling trot, his great claws rattling strangely on the stones, he trotted to the end of the street. The second street also was deserted, so down that he fled. The third street brought him in sight of the river. The wharf at the end of this street was also deserted, although the wharf next to it was quite busy where some men were loading a steamer. But the White Czar was not looking for men. He had seen enough of them to last him for the rest of his life, so he glided silently along, keeping in the shadows whenever he could. Finally, after considerable slinking and skulking on his part, he reached the end of the wharf.
There he slipped almost as silently into the water as an otter might have done, and sank from sight. When he next appeared, it was only his head that showed and it was a hundred feet from the wharf. After that his head might occasionally have been seen popping up until he reached the middle of the channel. Then he struck out boldly and swam for the northern shore.
It was a five mile swim, for the great river that drains five of the largest fresh water lakes in the world was broad here.
But the White Czar who is best of all swimmers among quadrupeds made the distance in about half an hour. When he finally struggled up on the bank, he shook himself and looking again at the heavens tested the wind. It was a strange country to him. The cities and towns of men, with their strange inventions were all about him. Yet the wind and the sky were just the same everywhere. Man could not change them. So the great bear was guided by them.
Of course he did not know the north star. Yet who shall say but that this bright luminary had a message for him? There seemed to be no affinity in the great bear's nose for the magnetic pole, yet that also pulled him strangely. But most of all he felt the lure of the great wilderness of the province of Quebec that primæval wilderness that lies just beyond the boundaries of civilization. Few Americans appreciate the fact that the province of Quebec stretches away to the north of the great river for twelve hundred miles, before the boundary of Labrador is reached.
It was the lure of this great wilderness, so much akin to his own wild northland that the White Czar felt and he did not waste any time in answering the call. For two hours he trotted steadily forward, keeping away from the smooth, broad trails which smelled so strongly of men. Henceforth this scent of man he would flee from with all his strength.
So he guided his way in open fields and woods and kept out of the sight and smell of everything that pertained to man. When the stars began to pale, he crept into the very heart of a dense swamp which the ingenuity of the Canadian farmers had not yet conquered, and slept through the day. When darkness came, he crept forth again and once more took up his steady untiring gallop northward.
He did not stop that night for anything to eat, he was too much obsessed with the idea of flight. He must gallop and gallop and gallop. So that night he covered over fifty miles. Again at the approach of dawn he hid in the densest wood that he could discover. There he once more slept away the daylight.
When the friendly night again appeared, he crawled out and fled northward, and fifty more good English miles were put between him and the great city from which he had escaped.
Just at dawn as he was thinking of finding a hiding place for the day, he came out into an open pasture and smelled a scent which was new to him; it was a strong animal scent.
Then the White Czar remembered that he was ravenously hungry.
He had come a hundred and twenty miles without food. So he crept cautiously forward. Then a score of small white animals jumped up almost in front of him and began running wildly about.
The sound they made was like the bleating of the seal pups.
At the thought of seal pups the White Czar's mouth fairly watered.
He had never even heard of sheep, but these small white creatures looked and smelled good. So he made after them.
In a few seconds he was along side a large ewe, for the Czar had surprised a flock of Canadian sheep. One blow from the great bear's paw broke the sheep's back. The mighty hunter soon dispatched it and then, seizing the dead sheep in his powerful jaws made for the deep woods. That day he alternately slept and feasted upon mutton. This was the first of many good meals that he made from sheep.
Two days later, at twilight, just as he was starting for his long night gallop, he surprised his cousin, the black bear, feasting upon something at the edge of the woods.
The White Czar was much surprised at the sight of this black bear. All the bears he had ever seen had been white. But this bear was much smaller than he, so he charged and put him to flight. He was rewarded by finding the black bear had been feasting on a fawn which he had just killed. So the white marauder finished the fawn and went on his way rejoicing.
On another occasion the White Czar also profited by the example of the Black Cousin. This was when he discovered a black bear fishing. He was sitting on a rock at the edge of the stream watching the water intently. For some time the White Czar watched the black bear but could not discover what he was doing.
But finally the paw of the black fisherman shot out, and a great fish went flapping on to the low bank. The White Czar was much surprised, but when the black bear fisherman caught the next fish, the Czar rushed out and drove him away with such ferocity that he forgot his fish and the Czar
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feasted upon it. After that he often fished himself in the streams which ran into the sea.
The White Czar always travelled about ten miles inland. He did not want to follow the sea coast, for he had discovered that men lived along the coast. He would keep as far away from them as he could and still keep in touch with the sea.
Then this wonderful country abounded in strange berries which were delicious to the taste. This was another thing that the white bear learned of his black cousin. There were also many roots which were good eating. Altogether it was a wonderful country through which the White Czar fled. But it was not his country. His home was by the wild Arctic sea, upon the icefloe, amid the ice and snow. This country was too tame, too warm, too comfortable.
He wanted something more boisterous, more difficult, something against which he might pit his great strength.
Finally after about a month he came to a good-sized stream where there were several beaver dams. He had also seen many caribou signs that day, so he was beginning to feel at home.
The ptarmigan likewise were plenty. Surely he was coming into his own.
This river did not look like the rivers he had crossed in his flight through the province of Quebec. It was more rugged, more rocky. The water ran more swiftly. It was more turbulent, like the racing blood in the veins of the White Czar. With an exultance that he had not felt since his capture two months before, the white bear plunged into the river and swam it. The water swirled about him and he battled with the current. It made him glad. Here was something to fight. He reached the further bank and shook himself, then raised his great head and sniffed the wind. There was a tang about it that he had not smelled in many a week. It was fairly cold. It made him distend his nostrils and take in great breaths. Did it smell of salt water? Was it the open sea that he smelled? The great bear could not tell. But one thing he did know. He was at home in Labrador at last. The fell clutch of civilization would never again grip him. He was back in his native wilds. He would come and go as he wished. No mere man creature should ever again fling a rope over his great head and drag him to that cramped cage. He would fight to the death before that should happen again.
He was free, free, and would remain so, until the wild arctic winds and the cold finally conquered him and he lay down to sleep with his sires.