“The biggest fool is the man that thinks he knows it all.” –Old Cy Walker.
Fortwo weeks the little party at Birch Camp first watched and then began to enjoy themselves once more. September had come, the first tint of autumn colored every patch of hardwood, a mellow haze softened the outline of each green-clad hill and mountain, the sun rose red and sailed an unclouded course each day, and gentle breezes rippled the lake. The forest, the sky, the air and earth, all seemed in harmonious mood, and the one discordant note, fear of this half-breed, slowly vanished.
Chip resumed her hour of study each day; a little fishing and hunting was indulged in by Martin and the two officers; wild ducks, partridges, deer, and trout supplied their table; each evening all gathered about the open fire in Martin’s new cabin, and while the older people chatted, Ray took his banjo or whispered with Chip.
These two, quite unguessed by Angie, had becomealmost lovers, and as it was understood Chip was to be taken to Greenvale, all that wonder-world, to her, had been described by Ray many times. He also outlined many little plans for sleigh-rides, skating on the mill-pond, and dances which he and she were to enjoy together.
His own future and livelihood were a little hazy to him. These matters do not impress a youth of eighteen; but of one thing he felt sure,–that Chip with her rosy face and black eyes, always tender to him, was to be his future companion in all pleasures. It was love among the spruce trees, a summer idyl made tender by the dangers interrupting it, and hidden from all eyes except Old Cy’s, who was these young friends’ favorite.
How many times he had taken these two over the ridge during the first two weeks, and picked berries while they played at it, or crossed the lake in his canoe to leave them on the shore while he cast for trout, no one but himself knew, and he wasn’t telling.
Even now, with these two strangers about, Old Cy, Chip, and Ray somehow seemed to “flock by themselves.” Old Cy took them canoeing. They paddled up streams entering the lake. He showed them where muskrats were house-building, wheremink had runways, and otter had sliding spots; and to forestall a plan of his own, he enlarged upon the fun and profit of trapping here when the time came. If these two young doves cooed a little meantime, he never heard it; if they held hands unduly long, he never saw it; and if they exchanged kisses behind his back–well, it was their own loss if they didn’t.
But these days of mingled romance and tragic happenings, of shooting, fishing, story-telling, and wildwood life, were nearing their end, and one evening Martin announced that on the morrow they would pack their belongings and, escorted by the officers, leave the wilderness.
The next morning Old Cy took Ray aside.
“I want a good square talk with ye, my boy,” he said, “an’ I’m goin’ to do ye a good turn if I kin. Now to begin, I s’pose ye know yer aunt’s goin’ to take Chip to Greenvale ’n’ gin her a chance at the schoolin’ she sartinly needs. Now you’re callatin’ to go ’long ’n’ have a heap o’ fun this winter. I’m goin’ to stay here ’n’ keer for Amzi. This is the situation ’bout as it is. Now you hev got yer eddication, ’n’ the next move is to make yer way in the world ’n’ arn suthin’, an’ ez a starter, I want ye to stay here this winter with me ’n’ trap. The woods round here is jist bristlin’ with spruce gum that is worth a dollar-fiftya pound, easy. We’ve got two months now, ’fore snow gits deep. We kin live on the top shelf in the way o’ fish ’n’ game. We’ll ketch a b’ar and pickle his meat ’n’ smoke his hams, and when spring comes, I’ll take ye out with mebbe five hundred dollars’ worth of furs ’n’ gum ez a beginnin’.
“Thar’s also ’nother side to consider. Chip wants schoolin’, ’n’ she’s got to study night ’n’ day fer the next eight months. If you go back with ’em, an’ go gallivantin’ ’round with her, ez you’re sure to, it won’t be no help to her. I’ve given you two all the chances fer weavin’ the threads o’ ’fect-shun I could this summer, an’ now let’s you ’n’ I turn to and make some money. I’ve asked your uncle ’n’ aunt. They’re willin’, ’n’ now, what do ye say?”
Few country boys with a love for trapping, such as Ray had, ever had a more alluring prospect spread before them. He knew Old Cy was right in all his conclusions, and almost without hesitation he agreed to the plan.
It was far-sighted wisdom on Old Cy’s part, however, in not giving Ray time to reflect, else the magnet of Chip’s eyes on the one hand, and eight months of separation on the other, would have proved too strong, and trap-setting and gum-gathering,with five hundred dollars as reward, would have failed.
As it was, he came near weakening at the last moment when the canoes were packed and Angie and Chip came to take their seats in them.
He and his crude, rude, yet winsome little sweetheart had suffered a brief preliminary parting the evening previous. A good many sweet and silly nothings had been exchanged, also promises, and now the boy’s heart was very sore.
Chip was more stoical. Her life at Tim’s Place and contact with Old Tomah had taught her reserve, and yet when she turned for the last possible look at Old Cy and Ray, waving good-bye at the landing, a mist of tears hid them.
Old Cy’s face was also a study. To him these parting clouds were as the white ones hiding the sun; yet he felt their chill. His own life shadow was lengthening. He had now but a brief renewal of youth in the lives of these two, and then forgetfulness, as he knew full well, and yet he pitied them.
More than that, he had set his hand to guiding the bark of their young lives into the safe harbor of a home, and all feelings of his own subserved to that.
“Come, come, my boy,” he said to Ray as the two turned away, and he noted the lad’s sad face,“she’s gone now, an’ ye’d best ferget her fer a spell. Ye won’t, I know, ’n’ she won’t; but ye’d best make believe ye do. This ain’t no spot fer love-sick spells. We’ve got work to do, ’n’ money to arn; ye’ve got the chance o’ yer life now, an’ me to help ye to it, so brace up ’n’ look cheerful.
“Think o’ what we got to do to git ready fer winter ’n’ six foot o’ snow. Think o’ the traps we’re goin’ to set, an’ the fun o’ tendin’ ’em. Why, girls ain’t in it a minnit with ketchin’ mink, marten, otter, an’ now ’n’ then a lynx or bobcat. Then when ye go back with a new suit ’n’ money in yer pocket, ye’ll feel prouder’n a peacock, ’n’ Chip a-smilin’ at ye sweeter’n new maple syrup.”
Verily Old Cy had the wisdom of age and the cheerfulness of morning sunshine.
All that day these wilderness-marooned friends worked hard. An ample stock of birch wood must be cut and split, a shed of poles to cover it must be erected alongside of the cabin, the hermit’s log hut was to be divested of its fittings, which were to be removed to the new cabin which all were now to occupy.
Realizing how vital to their existence the canoes were, Old Cy had also planned a shelter of small logs for them on one side of the log cabin, that couldbe locked. Here the canoes not in use must be stored at once to guard against a night call from the malignant half-breed. His canoe had been taken along by Martin’s party, to be left at Tim’s Place, for even Hersey would have scorned to appropriate it.
There were dozens of other needs to prepare for during the next two months, all of which were important. An ample supply of deer meat must be secured, to be pickled and smoked. All the partridges they could shoot would be needed, and later, when south-bound ducks halted at the lake, a few of these would add to their larder.
In this connection, also, another need occurred to Old Cy. Trout could be caught all winter in the lake, but live bait must be had, and so a slat car to be sunk in some swift-running stream, which would hold them, must be constructed, also a scoop of mosquito net to catch them. These minnows were to be found now by the million in every brook, and forethought was Old Cy’s watchword.
All these duties and details he discussed that first day with Ray, while they worked, for a purpose.
But the first evening here, with its open fire, yet empty seats, was the hardest to pass. In vain Old Cy enlarged upon the joys of trap-setting once more,and how and where they were to secure gum. In vain he described how deadfalls were built and where they must be placed, how many signs of lynx and wildcat he had seen that summer, and how sure they were to secure some of these valuable furs.
Ray’s heart was not here. Far away in some night camp, Chip was thinking of him. He knew each day would bear her farther away. No word of her safe arrival could reach them now. Long months must elapse ere he and she could meet again, and in prospect they seemed an eternity.
“Come, git yer banjo, my boy,” Old Cy ejaculated at last, seeing Ray’s face grow gloomy. “Tune ’er up, an’ play us suthin’ lively. None o’ them goody-goody weepin’ sort o’ tunes; but give us ‘Money Musk’ ’n’ a few jigs. I’m feelin’ our prospects are so cheerful, I’d like to cut a few pigeon-wings out o’ compliment.”
But Old Cy’s hilarity was nearly all put on. He, too, felt the effect of the empty seats and missed every one that had gone, and Ray’s jig tunes lacked their spirit. He essayed a few, and then quite unconsciously his fingers strayed to “My Old Kentucky Home,” and Old Cy’s feelings responded.
“I jist nachly hate a person that talks as tho’ he’d bin measured fer a harp.”–Old Cy Walker.
Chip’sarrival in Greenvale produced astonishment and gossip galore. It began when the stage that “Uncle Joe” Barnes had driven for twenty years started for that village. There were other passengers besides Martin, his wife, and Chip. The seats inside were soon filled, and Chip, seeing a coveted chance, climbed nimbly to a position beside the driver.
“Gee Whittaker,” observed one bystander to another, as Chip’s black-stockinged legs flashed into view, “but that gal’s nimbler’n a squirrel ’n’ don’t mind showin’ underpinnin’. I wished I was drivin’ that stage. I’ll bet she’s a circus.”
Uncle Joe soon found her a live companion at least, for he had scarce left the village ere she began.
“Your hosses are fatter’n Tim’s hosses used to be,” she said. “Do ye feed ’em on hay and taters?”
Uncle Joe gave her a sideways glance.
“Hay and taters,” he exclaimed; “we don’t feed hosses on taters down here. Where’d you come from?”
“I used to live at Tim’s Place, up in the woods, ’n’ we fed our hosses on taters, ’n’ they had backs sharp ’nuff to split ye.”
This time Uncle Joe faced squarely around.
“I know all about hosses,” she continued glibly, “I used to take keer on ’em ’n’ ride one ploughin’, an’ I’ve been throwed more’n a hundred times when we struck roots, an’ ye ought to ’a’ heerd Tim cuss. I used to cuss just the same, but Mrs. Frisbie says I mustn’t.”
“Wal, I swow,” ejaculated Uncle Joe, realizing that he had a “case.” “What’s your name, ’n’ whar’s Tim’s Place?”
“My name’s Chip, Chip McGuire, only ’tain’t, it’s Vera; but they allus called me Chip, an’ Tim’s Place is ever so far up in the woods. I runned away ’cause dad sold me, an’ fetched up at Mrs. Frisbie’s camp, ’n’ she’s goin’ to eddicate me. My mother got killed when I was a kid, ’n’ my dad killed ’nother one, too; he’s a bad ’un.”
Uncle Joe gasped at this gory tale of double murder, not being quite sure that the girl was sane.
“Hain’t they ketched yer dad yit?” he queried.
“No, nor they won’t,” Chip rattled on, as if such killing were a daily occurrence in the woods. “He’s a slick ’un, they say, an’ now he’s got Pete’s money, he’ll lay low.”
“Worse and worse, and more of it,” Uncle Joe thought.
“You must ’a’ had middlin’ lively times up in the woods,” he said. “Did yer dad kill anybody else ’sides yer mother ’n’ this man?”
“He didn’t kill mother,” Chip returned promptly; “he used to lick her, though, but she got killed in a mill, ’n’ I wisht it ’ud bin him. I wouldn’t ’a’ bin an orfin then. Say,” she added, as they entered a woods-bordered stretch of road, “did ye ever see spites here?”
“Spites,” he responded, now more than ever in doubt as to her sanity, “what’s them?”
“Why, they’s just spites–things ye can’t see much of ’ceptin’ it’s dark. Then they come crawlin’ round. They’s souls o’ animals mostly, Old Tomah says. I’ve seen thousands on ’em.”
Uncle Joe shifted his quid, turned and eyed the girl once more. First, a wild and wofully mixed tale of murder, and then spookish things! Beyond question she had wheels, and he resolved to humor her.
“Oh, yes, we see them things here now ’n’ then,” he said, “but it takes considerable licker to do it. We hain’t had a murder, though, for quite a spell. This is a sorter peaceful neck o’ woods ye’re comin’ to.”
But Chip failed to grasp his quiet humor, and all through that twenty-mile autumn day stage ride she chattered on like a magpie.
He soon concluded she was sane enough, however, but the most voluble talker who ever shared his seat.
“I never seen the beat o’ her,” he said that night at Phinney’s store,–the village news agency,–“she clacked every minit from the time we started till we fetched in, an’ I never callated sich goin’s on ez she told about cud ever happen. Thar was murder ’n’ runnin’ away, ’n’ she got ketched ’n’ carried off ’n’ fetched back, ’n’ a whole lot o’ resky business. She believes in ghosts, too, sorter Injun sperits, ’n’ she kin swear jist ez easy ez I kin. It seems the Frisbies hev kinder ’dopted her, ’n’ I guess they’ll hev their hands full. She’s a bright ’un, though, but sich a talker!”
At Aunt Comfort’s spacious, old-fashioned home, where Chip was now installed, she soon began to create the same impression. This hadbeen Angie’s former home, and her Aunt Comfort Day had been her foster-mother.
This family, in addition to the new arrival, consisted of Aunt Comfort, rotund and warm-hearted; Hannah Pettibone, a well-along spinster of angular form and temper, thin to an almost painful degree, with a well-defined mustache; and a general helper on the farm, and a chore boy about Chip’s age named Nezer, completed the list.
Once included in this somewhat diverse group, Chip became an immediate bone of contention.
Aunt Comfort, of course, opened her heart to her at once; but Hannah closed hers, almost from the first day, and in addition she began to nurse malice as well. There was some reason for this, mainly due to Chip’s startling freshness of speech.
“I thought ye must be a man wearin’ wimmin’s clothes, the first time I see ye,” she said to Hannah the next day after her arrival, and without meaning offence. “It was all on account o’ yer little whiskers, I guess. I never see a woman with ’em afore. Why don’t ye shave?”
This was enough; for if there was any one thing more mortifying than all else to Hannah, it was her facial blemish, and a mention of it she considered an intentional insult.
From this moment onward she hated Chip.
Nezer, however, took to her as a duck to water, and her story, which he soon heard, became a real dime novel to him, and not content with one telling, he insisted on repetition. This was also unfortunate for–blessed with a vivid imagination and sure to enlarge upon all facts–he soon spread the story with many blood-curdling additions.
These stories, with Uncle Joe’s corroboration, resulted in a direful tale believed by all. Neighbors flocked in to see this heroine of many escapades, villagers halted in front of Aunt Comfort’s to catch a sight of this marvel, and so the wonder spread.
Angie was, of course, to blame. More impressed with the seriousness of the task she had undertaken than the need of caution, she had failed to tell Chip she must not talk about herself, and so a wofully distorted history became current gossip.
When Sunday came, the village church was packed, and Parson Jones marvelled much at the unexpected increase of religious interest. He had heard of this new arrival, but when the Frisbie family with Chip, in suitable clothing, entered their pew, the cynosure of all eyes, this unusual attendance was accounted for.
And what a staring-at Chip received!
On the church steps a group of both young and old men had awaited her arrival and gazed at her in open-eyed astonishment. All through service she was watched, and not content with this, a dozen or so, men and women, formed a double line outside, awaiting the Frisbies’ exit.
Angie also failed to understand the principal cause of this interest. Her last appearance at this church had been as a bride. Naturally that fact would produce some staring, and so the curious and almost rude scrutiny the family received, was less noticed by her.
But Chip’s eyes were observant.
“I don’t like goin’ to meetin’,” she said, “an’ bein’ stared at like I was a wildcat. I seen ’em grinnin’, too, some on ’em, when we went in, an’ one feller winked to another. What ailed ’em?”
Her vexations, however, had only just begun, for Angie had seen and made arrangements with Miss Phinney, one of the village school-teachers, and the next morning Chip was sent to school. And now real trouble commenced.
Not knowing more than how to read and spell short words, and unable to write, she, a fairly well-developedyoung lady, presented a problem which was hard for a teacher to solve. To put her in the class where she belonged was absurd. She must sit with older girls, or look ridiculous. If she recited with the eight-year-old children, the result would be the same, and so a species of private tuition with recitations at noon or after school became the only possible course and the one her teacher adopted.
This also carried its vexations, for Chip was as tall as Miss Phinney and a little larger. Not one of that band of pupils was over twelve. To join in their games was no sport for Chip, while they, having heard about her thrilling experiences, with a hint that she wasn’t quite right in her head, felt afraid of her.
“I feel so sorry for her,” Miss Phinney explained to Angie, a week later, “and yet, I don’t know what to do. She is so big the children won’t play with her, or she with them. I am the only one with whom she will talk, and she seems so humble and so grateful for every word. I can’t be as stern with her or govern her as I should, on account of her temper and size.
“Only yesterday I heard screaming at recess, and going out, I found that Chip had one of thegirls by the hair and was cuffing her. It transpired that this girl had called her an Indian and asked if she had ever scalped anybody. I can’t punish such a pupil, and I can’t help loving her, so you see she is a sore trial.”
She also became a trial to Angie in countless ways.
Of a deep religious conviction, and believing this waif needed to be brought into the fold, Angie set about that task at once. But Chip was impervious to such instruction. By no argument or persuasion could Angie force her protégée to renounce her belief in the heathenism of Old Tomah, or convince her that God and the angels were any different from his collection of spirit forms, or that heaven was anything more than another name for his happy hunting-grounds. Old Tomah had been her wise and only friend, so far. She had seen all the ghostly forms he had described, had felt all the occult influences which he said existed, and neither coaxing nor derision served to make her disown them.
Of course, Angie took her to church regularly. She sat through services and bowed as all did. Sabbath-school instruction would have been forced upon her but for the reason that made her a classof one under Miss Phinney, and Parson Jones’s attention was finally enlisted.
He spent an hour in pointing out her heathenish sins, assured her that Old Tomah was a wicked reprobate and an ignorant savage combined, that all influences so far surrounding her had been the worst possible,–a self-evident fact,–and unless she confessed a change of heart, and soon, too, all her friends here would desert her and the devil would overtake her by and by, and then closed this well-intended effort with a prayer.
Chip sat through it all, mute and cowering. The parson’s white hair, sharp eyes, and solemn voice awed her, and when he had departed, she began to cry.
“I don’t see the need o’ makin’ me say I don’t believe suthin’ when I do,” she said. “I’ve seen spites ’n’ I know I’ve seen ’em, an’ nobody can make me believe Old Tomah a bad man, if he is an Injun. He runned after me when I got ketched, ’n’ near got his eyes scratched out”–a logic it was useless to contend with.
“You’re jest a little spunky devil,” Hannah said to her later on with a vicious accent, “an’ if I was Mrs. Frisbie I’d larrup ye till ye confessed penitence, I would. The idee o’ you settin’ thara-mullin’ all the time the minister was tryin’ to save ye! It’s scand’lus!”
And that night Chip was back in the wilderness with Old Cy and Ray in thought, and so homesick for them that she cried herself to sleep.
“While yer argufyin’ with a fool, jes’ figger thar’s two on ’em.”–Old Cy Walker.
Thestreams and swamps contiguous to this lake were well adapted for the habitat of mink, muskrat, otter, fisher, and those large fur-bearing animals, the lynx and lucivee, and here a brief description of where such animals exist, and how they are caught, may be of interest.
The habits of the muskrat, the least cunning of these, are so well known that they merit only a few words. They are amphibious animals, their food is succulent roots, bulbs, and bark, and they frequent small, marshy ponds, sluggish streams, and swamps. In summer they conceal themselves by burrowing into soft banks; in winter they erect houses of sedge-grass, roots, and mud, and are caught in small steel traps set in shallow water at the entrance of their paths out of lake or stream.
Mink, marten, otter, and fisher are much alike in shape and habit. All belong to the same family, but vary in size, also slightly in the matter of food.Mink and marten live on fish, frogs, birds, mice, etc.; otter on fish and roots; and fishers, as their name implies, subsist largely on fish. All these are more valuable fur-bearing animals than muskrats. Their abiding places are swamps and shallow streams, in the banks of which they burrow, and they are usually caught in steel traps baited with fish or meat.
The lucivee, or lynx, and bobcat, more ferocious and cunning than their smaller cousins, roam the woods and swamps, live on smaller animals, hide in caves, crevices, and hollow trees, and they as well as otter occasionally are caught in deadfalls.
Old Cy, familiar as he was with the homes, habits, and the manner of catching these cunning animals, soon began his trap-setting campaign. A few dozen steel traps were first set along the stream and lagoons entering the lake, and then he and Ray pushed up Beaver Brook, and leaving their canoe, followed its narrow valley in search of suitable spots to set the more elaborated deadfalls, which also merit description.
A deadfall is made by placing one end of a suitably sized log–one perhaps fifteen feet long and a foot in diameter–on a figure four trap, so adjusted that its spindle end, to which the bait is secured, shall be poised beneath the upraised end of the log.Alongside of this log a double row of stakes is driven to form a pen with entrance leading to the bait. When this deadly contrivance is properly adjusted, the log and its pen of stakes is concealed with green boughs piled lightly over it, and all the hungry lynx sees is a narrow opening under green boughs, and in it a tempting morsel awaiting him. As those creatures, as well as now and then an otter, are sure to roam up and down all small streams, a spot where one emerges from a narrow defile, or joins a larger one, is usually selected for a deadfall.
It is also quite a task to clear a suitable space, fell a right-sized tree, and construct one of these penlike traps; and although Old Cy and Ray started early, it was mid-afternoon that day ere they had the third one ready and awaiting its possible victim.
As gum-gathering was also a part of their season’s plan, they now left the swamp valley, and, ascending the spruce-clad upland, began this work, which is also worthy of description.
The chewing gum of commerce, so delightful to schoolgirls and small boys, is the refined, diluted, and sweetened product of gum nuts, or the small excrescences of spruce sap that exudes and hardens around knot-holes and cracks in the bark of thosetrees. These form into hardened nuts or knobs of gum, from the size of a hazelnut to that of butternut, and are worth from a dollar to a dollar and fifty cents a pound. A long pole with a sharpened knife or chisel fastened to its tip is used by gum seekers. It can be gathered from the time frost first hardens it until spring, and to gather three to five pounds is considered a good day’s work.
Ray’s first attempt at this labor seemed like nut-gathering at home, only more romantic, and when they were well into the vast spruce growth bordering one side of the Beaver Brook valley, he became so interested in hunting for the brown knobs, loosening them, and picking them up that he would have soon lost all points of the compass, except for Old Cy.
There is also a spice of danger seasoning this pursuit. A wildcat might at any moment be seen watching from the crotch of a tree, or a bear might suddenly emerge from the thicket. It was hard work also, for while some parts of a spruce forest may be free from undergrowth, not all portions are, and this tangle is one not easy to move about in.
There was also another element that entered into the trapping and gum-gathering life,–the possible return of the half-breed.
“He hain’t nothin’ agin us,” Old Cy asserted, when the question came up. “We didn’t chase him the day he stole Chip, ’n’ yet I s’pose he’ll show up some day, ’n’ mebbe do us harm.”
It was this fear that had led Old Cy to leave one of their canoes in a log locker, securely barred, and also to caution the hermit to remain on guard at the cabin while he and Ray were away.
A canoe is the one most vital need of a wildwood life, for the reason that the streams are the only avenues of escape and afford the only opportunities for travel.
The wilderness, of course, can be traversed, but not easily. Swamps will be met and must be avoided, for a wilderness swamp is practically impassable. Streams can be forded, but lakes must be encompassed, and even an upland forest is but a tangled jungle of fallen trees and undergrowth.
Old Cy knew, or at least he felt almost sure, that the half-breed would return in good time. He had also reasoned out his failure to do so at once, and knew that left canoeless, as he had been that tragic day, his only course must be the one he actually followed. A month had elapsed since then, with no sign of this “varmint’s” return, and now Old Cy was on the watch for it.
Each morning, when he traversed the lake shore from ice-house to landing, he looked for tell-tale footprints. He watched for them wherever he went, and the distant report of a rifle would have been accepted as a sure harbinger of this enemy.
It became their custom now each day, first to visit all small traps in the near-by streams, then pushing their canoe as far as possible up the Beaver Brook, to leave it, continue up the valley, and after inspecting their deadfalls, turn to the right out of this swale, and begin the gathering of gum.
And now, one day, in carrying out this programme, a discovery was made.
They had first visited the small traps near the lake, securing a couple of mink and three muskrats, which were left in the canoe. An otter was found in one of the deadfalls, and taking this with them, they entered the spruce timber and hung it on a conspicuous limb. Then the search for gum began.
As usual, they worked hard. The days were short, the best of sunlight was needful to see the brown nuts in the sombre forest, and so they paid no heed to aught except what was overhead. When time to return arrived, Old Cy picked up his rifle and led the way back to where the otter had been left, but it had vanished. Glancing about to makesure that he was right, he advanced to the tree, looked down, and saw two footprints. Stooping over to examine them better in the uncertain light, he noted also that they were not his own, but larger, and made by some one wearing boots.
“Tain’t the half-breed,” he muttered, with an accent of relief, and looking about, he saw a well-defined trail leading down the slope and thence onward toward the swamp.
Some one had crossed this broad, oval, spruce-covered upland while they were not two hundred rods away from this tree, had stolen their otter, and gone on into the swamp.
Any freshly made human footprint found in a vast wilderness awakens curiosity; these seemed ominous.
“He must ’a’ seen us ’fore he did the otter,” Old Cy ejaculated, “an’ it’s curis he didn’t make himself known. Neighbors ain’t over plenty, hereabout.”
But the sun was nearing the tree-tops, the canoe was a mile away, and after one more look around, Old Cy started for it. There was no use in following this trail now, for it led into the tangled swamp, and so, skirting this until a point opposite the canoe was reached, Old Cy and Ray then plunged into it.
Twilight had begun to shadow this vale ere thecanoe was reached. And here was another surprise, for the canoe was found turned half over, and on its broad oval bottom was a curious outline of black mud. The light was not good here. A fir-grown ledge shadowed the spot; but as Old Cy stooped to examine this mud-made emblem, it gradually took shape, and he saw–a skull and cross bones!
“Wal, by the Great Horn Spoon!” he exclaimed, “I never s’posed a pirate ’ud fetch in here! An’ he’s swiped our muskrats and mink,” he added, as he looked under the canoe, “durn him!”
Then the bold bravado of it all occurred to Old Cy. The theft was doubtless made by whosoever had taken their otter, and not content with robbing them, he had added insult.
“I s’pose we’d orter be grateful he left the paddles ’n’ didn’t smash the canoe,” Old Cy continued, turning it over. “I wonder who’t can be?”
One hasty look around revealed the same boot-marks in the soft earth near the stream, and then he and Ray launched their craft and started for home.
“I’m goin’ to foller them tracks to-morrer,” Old Cy said, when they were entering the lake and a light in the cabin just across reassured him. “It may be a little resky, but I’m goin’ to find out what sorter a neighbor we’ve got.”
“When a man begins talkin’ ’bout himself, it seems as tho’ he’d never run down.”–Old Cy Walker.
Allfellow-sojourners in the wilderness awaken keen interest, and the unbroken silence and solitude of a boundless forest make a fellow human being one we are glad to accost.
A party of lumbermen wielding axes causes one to turn aside and call on them. A sportsman’s camp seen on a lake shore or near a stream’s bank always invites a landing to interview whoever may be there.
All this interest was now felt by Old Cy and Ray, and with it an added sense of danger. No friendly hunter or trapper would thus ignore them in the woods. This piratically minded thief must have seen them, for the spruce-clad oval, perhaps half a mile in width, was comparatively free from undergrowth where they had been working. He had crossed it within fairly open sight of them, had found the otter hanging from a limb, had taken it, and thence on to rob their canoe, daub it with that hideous emblem, world-wide in meaning, and then hadgone on his way. Almost could Old Cy see him watching them from behind trees, skulking along when their backs were turned, a low, contemptible thief.
Old Cy knew that bordering this oval ridge on its farther side was a swamp, that a stream flowed through it, and surmising that this fellow might have come up or down this stream, he left their cabin prepared for a two or three days’ sojourn away from it, which meant that food, blankets, and simple cooking utensils must be taken along.
No halt was made to visit traps. Old Cy was trailing bigger game now; and when the point where they had left the canoe the day previous was reached, the canoe was pulled out on the stream’s bank, the rifles only taken, and the trailing began. He followed up the brook valley a little way, to find that only one track came down; he then circled about the canoe, until, like a hound, he found where the clearly defined trail left the swamp again.
Here in the soft carpet under the spruce trees one could follow this trail on the run, and here also Old Cy found where this enemy had halted beside trees evidently while watching them, as the tracks indicated. When the bordering swamp was reached, the trail turned in a westerly direction, skirting thusfor half a mile, and here, also, evidences of skulking along were visible.
Another trail was now come upon, but leading directly over the ridge, and just beyond this juncture both the trails now joined, entered the swamp, and ended at a lagoon opening out from the stream. Here, also, evidences of a canoe having been hauled up into the bog were visible.
“That sneakin’ pirate come up this stream,” Old Cy observed to Ray, as the two stood looking at these unmistakable signs. “He left his canoe here ’n’ crossed the ridge above us ’n’ down to whar we left the otter ’n’ on to our canoe. Then he come back the way we follered, ’n’ my idee is he had his eye on us most o’ the time. I callate he has been laughin’ ever since at what we’d say when we found that mud daub on our canoe, durn him!”
But their canoe was now a half-mile away, and for a little time Old Cy looked at the black, currentless stream and considered. Then he glanced up at the sun.
“I’ve a notion we’d best fetch our canoe over here,” he said at last, “an’ follow this thief a spell farther. We may come on to suthin’.”
“Won’t he shoot at us?” returned Ray, more impressed by this possible danger than was Old Cy.
“Wal, mebbe and mebbe not,” answered the old man. “Shootin’s a game two kin play at, an’ we’ve jist ez good a right to foller the stream ez he has.”
But when their canoe had been carried over and launched in this lagoon, Ray’s spirits rose. It was an expedition into new waters, somewhat venturesome, and for that reason it appealed to him.
Then they had two rifles, Old Cy had taught him to shoot, he had already killed one deer and some smaller game, and the go-west-and-kill-Indian impulse latent in all boys was a part of Ray’s nature. Besides, he had an unbounded faith in Old Cy’s skill with the rifle.
And now began a canoe journey into and through a vast swamp, the upland border of which could scarce be seen. The stream they followed was black, and so absolutely motionless that it was a guess which way they were going. The mingled hack-matack and alder growth along each bank was so dense that no view ahead could be seen, and they must merely follow the winding pathway of dark waters and hope to come out somewhere.
For two hours they paddled along this serpentine highway, and then the vastness of this morass began to impress them. No sign of current had been met.All view of the spruce-grown upland they had left was obscured by distance. Now and then a dead tree, bleached and spectral, marked a turn in the stream, and hundreds of them, rising all about above the low green tangle, added a ghostly haze. It was as if they were venturing into a new world–a boundless morass, covered by an impenetrable tangle, and made grewsome by the bleaching trunks of dead trees.
“I’m goin’ to find which way we’re goin’,” Old Cy exclaimed at last, as they neared a small dead cedar that pointed out over the stream, and seizing a projecting limb of this, he broke off bits of dry twigs, and tossed them into the stream. For a long moment not one stirred, and then at last a movement backward could be discovered.
“We’re goin’ up-stream, anyhow,” he added, glancing at the sun, now marking mid-afternoon; “but we’ve got to git out o’ this ’fore dark, or we’ll be in a bad fix, an’ hev to sleep in the canoe.”
No halt for dinner had yet been made. They were both faint from need of food, and so Old Cy reached for a small wooden pail containing their sole supply of provisions. Neither was it a luxurious repast which was now eaten. A couple of hard-tacks munched by each and moistened with a cupof this swamp water and a bit of dried deer meat was all, and then Old Cy lit his pipe, dipped his paddle handle in the stream, and once more they pushed on. Soon a low mound of hard soil rose out of the tangle just ahead, an oasis in this unvarying mud swamp, and gaping at them from amid its cover of scrub birch and cedar stood a deadfall. It faced them as they neared this small island, and with log upraised between a pen of stakes it much resembled the open mouth of a huge alligator.
“Hain’t been built long,” Old Cy exclaimed, after they had landed to examine it. “I’ve a notion it’s the doin’s of our pirate friend, an’ he’s trappin’ round about this swamp. He’s had good luck lately, anyhow, for he’s got six o’ our pelts to add to his string.”
From here onward signs of human presence in this swamp became more visible. Now and then an opening cut through the limbs of a lopped-over spruce was met; a spot where drift had been pushed aside to clear the stream was found at one place; signs of a canoe having been nosed into the bog grass were seen; and here were also the same footprints they had followed.
Another bit of hard bottom was reached, and here again was another deadfall. Tracks evidently madewithin a few days were about here, and tied to its figure-four spindle was a freshly caught brook sucker.
“The scent’s gettin’ warm,” Old Cy muttered, as he examined these signs of a trapper’s presence, and then, mindful of the sun, he paddled on again.
And now an upland growth of tall spruce was seen ahead, the banks became in evidence, and a slight current was met. One more long bend in the stream was followed, then came curving banks and large-bodied spruce. They were out of the swamp.
Soon a more distinctive current opposed them, a low murmur of running water came from ahead, and then a pass between two abutting ledges was entered. Here the stream eddied over sunken rocks, and pushing on, the forest seemed suddenly to vanish as they emerged from the gloom of this short cañon, and the next moment they caught sight of a long, narrow lakelet.
The sun, now almost to the tree-tops, cast a reddish glow upon its placid surface, and so welcome a change was it from the ghostly, forbidding swamp just left, that Old Cy halted their canoe at once to look out upon it. It was seemingly a mile long, but quite a narrow lake. A bold, rocky shore rising in ledges faced them just across, and extended alongthat side, back of these a low, green-clad mountain, to the right, and at the end of this lanelike lake a bolder, bare-topped cliff was outlined clear and distinct.
This strip of water, for it was not much more, seemingly filled an oblong gorge in these mountains, only one break in them, to the left of this bare peak; and as Old Cy urged their canoe out of the alder-choked stream, now currentless once more, a margin line of rushes and reeds was seen to form that shore. Back of these, also, rose the low ledge they had passed.
“Looks like a good hidin’ spot fer a pirate,” he exclaimed, glancing up and down the smiling lakelet. “Thar ain’t many folks likely to tackle that swamp–it took us ’most all day to cross it. I’ll bet no lumberman ever tried it twice, ’n’ if I wanted to git absolutely ’way from bein’ molested, I’d locate here. I dunno whether we’d best cross ’n’ make camp ’mong them ledges, or go back into the woods. Guess we’d best go back ’n’ take a sneak round behind the ledge. I noticed a loggin[1]leadin’ up that way ’fore we left the swamp.”
But now something was discovered that proved Old Cy’s wisdom, for as they, charmed somewhat bythe spot, yet feeling it forbidding, still glanced up and down the bold shore just across, suddenly a thin column of smoke rose from away to the right, amid the bare ledges.
First a faint haze, rising in the still air, then a burst of white, until the fleecy pillar was plainly outlined as it ascended and drifted backward into the green forest.