Another moment and Meeko the squirrel had forgotten his fright and peril and everything else save his curiosity to find out who I was and all about me.  He had to pass quite close to me to get to another tree, but anything was better than going back where the marten might be waiting; so he was presently over my head, snickering and barking to make me move, and scolding me soundly for disturbing the peace of the woods.  In summer Upweekis is a solitary creature, rearing his young away back on the wildest burned lands, where game is plenty and where it is almost impossible to find him except by accident.  In winter also he roams alone for the most part; but occasionally, when rabbits are scarce, as they are periodically in the northern woods, he gathers in small bands for the purpose of pulling down big game that he would never attack singly.  Generally Upweekis is skulking and cowardly with man; but when driven by hunger (as I found out once) or when hunting in bands, he is a savage beast and must be followed cautiously.

I had heard much of the fierceness of these hunting bands from settlers and hunters; and once a friend of mine, an old backwoodsman, had a narrow escape from them.  He had a dog, Grip, a big brindled cur, of whose prowess in killing “varmints” he was always bragging, calling him the best “lucififer” dog in all Canada.  Lucififer, by the way, is a local name for the lynx on the upper St. John, where Grip and his master lived.

One day in winter the master missed a young heifer and went on his trail, with Grip and his axe for companions.  Presently he came to lynx tracks, then to signs of a struggle, then plump upon six or seven of the big cats snarling savagely over the body of the heifer.  Grip, the lucififer dog, rushed in blindly, and in two minutes was torn to ribbons.  Then the lynxes came creeping and snarling towards the man, who backed away, shouting and swinging his axe.  He killed one by a lucky blow, as it sprang for his chest.  The others drove him to his own door; but he would never have reached it, so he told me, but for a long strip of open land that he had cleared back into the woods.  He would face and charge the beasts, which seemed more afraid of his voice than of the axe, then run desperately to keep them from circling and getting between him and safety.  When he reached the open strip they followed a little way along the edges of the underbrush, but returned one at a time when they were sure he had no further mind to disturb their feast or their fighting.

It is curious that when Upweekis and his hunting pack pull down game in this way the first thing they do is to fight over it.  There may be meat enough and to spare, but under their fearful hunger is the old beastly instinct for each one to grab all for himself; so they fall promptly to teeth and claws before the game is dead.  The fightings at such times are savage affairs, both to the eye and ear.  One forgets that Upweekis is a shadow, and thinks that he must be a fiend.