Part 8

Having carried over the dam, he darted down the rapids, leaving us to walk for a mile or more, where for the most part there was no path, but very thick and difficult traveling near the stream. He would call to let us know where he was waiting for us with his canoe, when, on account of the windings of the stream, we did not know where the shore was, but he did not call often enough, forgetting that we were not Indians. He seemed to be very saving of his breath--yet he would be surprised if we went by, or did not strike the right spot. This was not because he was unaccommodating, but a proof of superior manners. Indians like to get along with the least possible communication and ado. He was really paying us a great compliment all the while, thinking that we preferred a hint to a kick.

At length, climbing over the willows and fallen trees, when this was easier than to go round or under them, we overtook the canoe, and glided down the stream in smooth but swift water for several miles. I here observed, as at Webster Stream, that the river was a smooth and regularly inclined plane down which we coasted.

We decided to camp early that we might have ample time before dark. So we stopped at the first favorable shore, where there was a narrow gravelly beach, some five miles below the outlet of the lake. Two steps from the water on either side, and you come to the abrupt, bushy, and rooty, if not turfy, edge of the bank, four or five feet high, where the interminable forest begins, as if the stream had but just cut its way through it.

It is surprising on stepping ashore anywhere into this unbroken wilderness to see so often, at least within a few rods of the river, the marks of the axe, made by lumberers who have either camped here or driven logs past in previous springs. You will see perchance where they have cut large chips from a tall white pine stump for their fire.

While we were pitching the camp and getting supper, the Indian cut the rest of the hair from his moose-hide, and proceeded to extend it vertically on a temporary frame between two small trees, half a dozen feet from the opposite side of the fire, lashing and stretching it with arbor-vitæ bark. Asking for a new kind of tea, he made us some pretty good of the checkerberry, which covered the ground, dropping a little bunch of it tied up with cedar bark into the kettle.

After supper he put on the moose tongue and lips to boil. He showed me how to write on the under side of birch bark with a black spruce twig, which is hard and tough and can be brought to a point.

The Indian wandered off into the woods a short distance just before night, and, coming back, said, “Me found great treasure.”

“What’s that?” we asked.

“Steel traps, under a log, thirty or forty, I didn’t count ’em. I guess Indian work--worth three dollars apiece.”

It was a singular coincidence that he should have chanced to walk to and look under that particular log in that trackless forest.

I saw chivin and chub in the stream when washing my hands, but my companion tried in vain to catch them. I heard the sound of bullfrogs from a swamp on the opposite side.

You commonly make your camp just at sundown, and are collecting wood, getting your supper, or pitching your tent while the shades of night are gathering around and adding to the already dense gloom of the forest. You have no time to explore or look around you before it is dark. You may penetrate half a dozen rods farther into that twilight wilderness after some dry bark to kindle your fire with, and wonder what mysteries lie hidden still deeper in it, or you may run down to the shore for a dipper of water, and get a clearer view for a short distance up or down the stream, and while you stand there, see a fish leap, or duck alight in the river, or hear a thrush or robin sing in the woods.

But there is no sauntering off to see the country. Ten or fifteen rods seems a great way from your companions, and you come back with the air of a much traveled man, as from a long journey, with adventures to relate, though you may have heard the crackling of the fire all the while--and at a hundred rods you might be lost past recovery and have to camp out. It is all mossy and _moosey_. In some of those dense fir and spruce woods there is hardly room for the smoke to go up. The trees are a _standing_ night, and every fir and spruce which you fell is a plume plucked from night’s raven wing. Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.

To-night the Indian lay between the fire and his stretched moose-hide, to avoid mosquitoes. Indeed, he also made a small smoky fire of damp leaves at his head and feet, and then as usual rolled up his head in his blanket. We with our veils and our wash were tolerably comfortable, but it would be difficult to pursue any sedentary occupation in the woods at this season; you cannot see to read much by the light of a fire through a veil in the evening, nor handle pencil and paper well with gloves or anointed fingers.

IX

FRIDAY, JULY 31

We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long come to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank around some rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes sometimes to tell which side was the carry, before you went over the falls, but Polis never failed to land us rightly. The raspberries were particularly abundant and large here, and all hands went to eating them, the Indian remarking on their size.

Often on bare rocky carries the trail was so indistinct that I repeatedly lost it, but when I walked behind him I observed that he could keep it almost like a hound, and rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a moment on a bare rock, his eye immediately detected some sign which would have escaped me. Frequently _we_ found no path at all at these places, and were to him unaccountably delayed. He would only say it was “ver’ strange.”

We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and thought that each fall we came to must be it, but after christening several in succession with this name we gave up the search. There were more Grand or Petty Falls than I can remember.

I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this forenoon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail being lined with one or both. There was not a carry on the main East Branch where we did not find an abundance of both these berries, for these were the rockiest places and partially cleared, such as these plants prefer, and there had been none to gather the finest before us.

We bathed and dined at the foot of one of these carries. It was the Indian who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time, sometimes even by turning the prow to the shore. He once made an indirect, but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but that one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season. At the most considerable fall on this stream, when I was walking over the carry close behind the Indian, he observed a track on the rock, which was but slightly covered with soil, and, stooping, muttered, “Caribou.”

When we returned, he observed a much larger track near the same place, where some animal’s foot had sunk into a small hollow in the rock,

## partly filled with grass and earth, and he exclaimed with surprise,

“What that?”

“Well, what is it?” I asked.

Stooping and laying his hand in it, he answered with a mysterious air, and in a half-whisper, “Devil [that is, Indian devil, or cougar]--ledges about here--very bad animal--pull ’em rocks all to pieces.”

“How long since it was made?” I asked.

“To-day or yesterday,” said he.

We spent at least half the time in walking to-day. The Indian, being alone, commonly ran down far below the foot of the carries before he waited for us. The carry-paths themselves were more than usually indistinct, often the route being revealed only by the countless small holes in the fallen timber made by the tacks in the drivers’ boots. It was a tangled and perplexing thicket, through which we stumbled and threaded our way, and when we had finished a mile of it, our starting-point seemed far away. We were glad that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks of this river, which would be a journey of more than a hundred miles. Think of the denseness of the forest, the fallen trees and rocks, the windings of the river, the streams emptying in, and the frequent swamps to be crossed. It made you shudder. Yet the Indian from time to time pointed out to us where he had thus crept along day after day when he was a boy of ten, and in a starving condition.

He had been hunting far north of this with two grown Indians. The winter came on unexpectedly early, and the ice compelled them to leave their canoe at Grand Lake, and walk down the bank. They shouldered their furs and started for Oldtown. The snow was not deep enough for snowshoes, or to cover the inequalities of the ground. Polis was soon too weak to carry any burden, but he managed to catch one otter. This was the most they all had to eat on this journey, and he remembered how good the yellow lily roots were, made into a soup with the otter oil. He shared this food equally with the other two, but being so small he suffered much more than they. He waded through the Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was freezing cold and came up to his chin, and he, being very weak and emaciated, expected to be swept away. The first house which they reached was at Lincoln, and thereabouts they met a white teamster with supplies, who, seeing their condition, gave them as much as they could eat. For six months after getting home he was very low and did not expect to live, and was perhaps always the worse for it.

For seven or eight miles below that succession of “Grand” falls the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed. After passing a tributary from the northeast we had swift smooth water. Low grassy banks and muddy shores began. Many elms as well as maples and more ash trees overhung the stream and supplanted the spruce.

Mosquitoes, black flies, etc., pursued us in mid-channel, and we were glad sometimes to get into violent rapids, for then we escaped them. As we glided swiftly down the inclined plane of the river, a great cat owl launched itself away from a stump on the bank, and flew heavily across the stream, and the Indian, as usual, imitated its note. Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp,--for we expected to be overtaken by a shower,--and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the shore still farther down the stream. Some _she-corways_ being surprised by us, a part of them dived, and we passed directly over them, and could trace their course here and there by a bubble on the surface, but we did not see them come up.

It was some time before we found a camping-place, for the shore was either too grassy and muddy, where mosquitoes abounded, or too steep a hillside. We at length found a place to our minds, where, in a very dense spruce wood above a gravelly shore, there seemed to be but few insects. The trees were so thick that we were obliged to clear a space to build our fire and lie down in, and the young spruce trees that were left were like the wall of an apartment rising around us. We were obliged to pull ourselves up a steep bank to get there. But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very center of civilization to you: “Home is home, be it never so homely.”

The mosquitoes were numerous, and the Indian complained a good deal, though he lay, as the night before, between three fires and his stretched hide. As I sat on a stump by the fire with a veil and gloves on, trying to read, he observed, “I make you candle,” and in a minute he took a piece of birch bark about two inches wide and rolled it hard, like an allumette[4] fifteen inches long, lit it, fixed it by the other end horizontally in a split stick three feet high, and stuck it in the ground, turning the blazing end to the wind, and telling me to snuff it from time to time. It answered the purpose of a candle pretty well.

I noticed, as I had before, that there was a lull among the mosquitoes about midnight, and that they began again in the morning. Apparently they need rest as well as we. Few, if any, creatures are equally active all night. As soon as it was light I saw, through my veil, that the inside of the tent about our heads was quite blackened with myriads, and their combined hum was almost as bad to endure as their stings. I had an uncomfortable night on this account, though I am not sure that one succeeded in his attempt to sting me.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] A match. In this case an old-fashioned “spill,” or lamplighter, made by twisting a piece of paper, into a long, tight spiral roll.

X

SATURDAY, SUNDAY, MONDAY AUGUST 1-3

I caught two or three large red chivin within twenty feet of the camp, which, added to the moose tongue that had been left in the kettle boiling over night, and to our other stores, made a sumptuous breakfast. The Indian made us some hemlock tea instead of coffee. This was tolerable, though he said it was not strong enough. It was interesting to see so simple a dish as a kettle of water with a handful of green hemlock sprigs in it boiling over the huge fire in the open air, the leaves fast losing their lively green color, and know that it was for our breakfast.

We were glad to embark once more and leave some of the mosquitoes behind. We found that we had camped about a mile above Hunt’s, which is the last house for those who ascend Katahdin on this side. We had expected to ascend it from this point, but my companion was obliged to give up this on account of sore feet. The Indian, however, suggested that perhaps he might get a pair of moccasins at this place, and that he could walk very easily in them without hurting his feet, wearing several pairs of stockings, and he said beside that they were so porous that when you had taken in water it all drained out in a little while. We stopped to get some sugar, but found that the family had moved away, and the house was unoccupied, except temporarily by some men who were getting the hay. I noticed a seine here stretched on the bank, which probably had been used to catch salmon.

Just below this, on the west bank, we saw a moose-hide stretched, and with it a bearskin. The Indian said they belonged to Joe Aitteon,[5] but how he told I do not know. He was probably hunting near and had left them for the day. Finding that we were going directly to Oldtown, he regretted that he had not taken more of the moose meat to his family, saying that in a short time, by drying it, he could have made it so light as to have brought away the greater part, leaving the bones. We once or twice inquired after the lip, which is a famous tidbit, but he said, “That go Oldtown for my old woman; don’t get it every day.”

Maples grew more and more numerous. It rained a little during the forenoon, and, as we expected a wetting, we stopped early and dined just above Whetstone Falls, about a dozen miles below Hunt’s. My companion, having lost his pipe, asked the Indian if he could make him one.

“Oh, yer,” said he, and in a minute rolled up one of birch bark, telling him to wet the bowl from time to time.

We carried round the falls. The distance was about three fourths of a mile. When we had carried over one load, the Indian returned by the shore, and I by the path; and though I made no particular haste I was nevertheless surprised to find him at the other end as soon as I. It was remarkable how easily he got over the worst ground. He said to me, “I take canoe and you take the rest, suppose you can keep along with me?”

I thought he meant that while he ran down the rapids I should keep along the shore, and be ready to assist him from time to time, as I had done before; but as the walking would be very bad, I answered, “I suppose you will go too fast for me, but I will try.”

But I was to go by the path, he said. This I thought would not help the matter, I should have so far to go to get to the riverside when he wanted me. But neither was this what he meant. He was proposing a race over the carry, and asked me if I thought I could keep along with him by the same path, adding that I must be pretty smart to do it. As his load, the canoe, would be much the heaviest and bulkiest, I thought that I ought to be able to do it, and said that I would try. So I proceeded to gather up the gun, axe, paddle, kettle, frying-pan, plates, dippers, carpets, etc., and while I was thus engaged he threw me his cowhide boots. “What, are these in the bargain?” I asked.

“Oh, yer,” said he; but before I could make a bundle of my load I saw him disappearing over a hill with the canoe on his head.

Hastily scraping the various articles together, I started on the run, and immediately went by him in the bushes, but I had no sooner left him out of sight in a rocky hollow than the greasy plates, dippers, etc., took to themselves wings, and while I was employed in gathering them up, he went by me; but, hastily pressing the sooty kettle to my side, I started once more, and, soon passing him again, I saw him no more on the carry. I do not mention this as anything of a feat, for it was but poor running on my part, and he was obliged to move with great caution for fear of breaking his canoe as well as his neck. When he made his appearance, puffing and panting like myself, in answer to my inquiries where he had been, he said, “Locks cut ’em feet,” and, laughing, added, “Oh, me love to play sometimes.”

He said that he and his companions when they came to carries several miles long used to try who would get over first; each perhaps with a canoe on his head. I bore the sign of the kettle on my brown linen sack for the rest of the voyage.

[Illustration: _Carrying round the Falls_]

As we approached the mouth of the East Branch we passed two or three huts, the first sign of civilization after Hunt’s, though we saw no road as yet. We heard a cowbell, and even saw an infant held up to a small square window to see us pass. On entering the West Branch at Nicketow, Polis remarked that it was all smooth water hence to Oldtown, and he threw away his pole which was cut on the Umbazookskus.

We camped about two miles below Nicketow, covering with fresh twigs the withered bed of a former traveler, and feeling that we were now in a settled country, especially when in the evening we heard an ox sneeze in its wild pasture across the river. Wherever you land along the frequented part of the river you have not far to go to find these sites of temporary inns, the withered bed of flattened twigs, the charred sticks, and perhaps the tent-poles. Not long since, similar beds were spread along the Connecticut, the Hudson, and the Delaware, and longer still ago, by the Thames and Seine, and they now help to make the soil where private and public gardens, mansions, and palaces are. We could not get fir twigs for our bed here, and the spruce was harsh in comparison, having more twig in proportion to its leaf, but we improved it somewhat with hemlock.

After the regular supper we attempted to make a lily soup of the bulbs which I had brought along, for I wished to learn all I could before I got out of the woods. Following the Indian’s directions, I washed the bulbs carefully, minced some moose meat and some pork, salted and boiled all together, but we had not the patience to try the experiment fairly, for he said it must be boiled till the roots were completely softened so as to thicken the soup like flour; but though we left it on all night, we found it dried to the kettle in the morning and not yet boiled to a flour. Perhaps the roots were not ripe enough, for they commonly gather them in the fall. The Indian’s name for these bulbs was _sheepnoc_.

He prepared to camp as usual between his moose-hide and the fire, but it beginning to rain suddenly he took refuge under the tent with us, and gave us a song before falling asleep. It rained hard in the night and spoiled another box of matches for us, which the Indian had left out, for he was very careless; but we had so much the better night for the rain, since it kept the mosquitoes down.

Sunday, a cloudy and unpromising morning. One of us observed to the Indian, “You did not stretch your moose-hide last night, did you, Mr. Polis?”