PART III
IN THE WOODS
I
Really in the Woods
"Ye seem to waste a powerful lot o' time goin' up an' down to yer camp; why don't ye stay thayer altogether?" said Raften one day, in the colourless style that always worried every one, for they did not know whether it was really meant or was mere sarcasm.
"Suits me. 'Tain't our choice to come home," replied his son.
"We'd like nothing better than to sleep there, too," said Yan.
"Well, why don't ye? That's what I'd do if I was a boy playin' Injun; I'd go right in an' play."
"_All right now_," drawled Sam (he always drawled in proportion to his emphasis), "that suits us; now we're a-going sure."
"All right, bhoys," said Raften; "but mind ye the pigs an' cattle's to be 'tended to every day."
"Is that what ye call lettin' us camp out--come home to work jest the same?"
"No, no, William," interposed Mrs. Raften; "that's not fair. That's no way to give them a holiday. Either do it or don't. Surely one of the men can do the chores for a month."
"Month--I didn't say nothin' about a month."
"Well, why don't you now?"
"Whoi, a month would land us into harvest," and William had the air of a man at bay, finding them all against him.
"I'll do Yahn's chores for a fortnight if he'll give me that thayer pictur he drawed of the place," now came in Michel's voice from the far end of the table--"except Sunday," he added, remembering a standing engagement, which promised to result in something of vast importance to him.
"Wall, I'll take care o' them Sundays," said Si Lee.
"Yer all agin me," grumbled William with comical perplexity. "But bhoys ought to be bhoys. Ye kin go."
"Whoop!" yelled Sam.
"Hooray!" joined in Yan, with even more interest though with less unrestraint.
"But howld on, I ain't through--"
"I say, Da, we want your gun. We can't go camping without a gun."
"Howld on, now. Give me a chance to finish. Ye can go fur two weeks, but ye got to _go_; no snakin' home nights to sleep. Ye can't hev no matches an' no gun. I won't hev a lot o' children foolin' wid a didn't-know-it-was-loaded, an' shootin' all the birds and squirrels an' each other, too. Ye kin hev yer bows an' arrows an' ye ain't likely to do no harrum. Ye kin hev all the mate an' bread an' stuff ye want, but ye must cook it yerselves, an' if I see any signs of settin' the Woods afire I'll be down wid the rawhoide an' cut the very livers out o' ye."
The rest of the morning was devoted to preparation, Mrs. Raften taking the leading hand.
"Now, who's to be cook?" she asked.
"Sam"--"Yan"--said the boys in the same breath.
"Hm! You seem in one mind about it. Suppose you take it turn and turn about--Sam first day."
Then followed instructions for making coffee in the morning, boiling potatoes, frying bacon. Bread and butter enough they were to take with them--eggs, too.
"You better come home for milk every day or every other day, at least," remarked the mother.
"We'd ruther steal it from the cows in the pasture," ventured Sam, "seems naturaler to me Injun blood."
"If I ketch ye foolin' round the cows or sp'ilin' them the fur'll fly," growled Raften.
"Well, kin we hook apples and cherries?" and Sam added in explanation; "they're no good to us unless they're hooked."
"Take all the fruit ye want."
"An' potatoes?"
"Yes."
"An' aigs?"
"Well, if ye don't take more'n ye need."
"An' cakes out of the pantry? Indians do that."
"No; howld on now. That is a good place to draw the line. How are ye goin' to get yer staff down thayer? It's purty heavy. Ye see thayer are yer beds an' pots an' pans, as well as food."
"We'll have to take a wagon to the swamp and then carry them on our backs on the blazed trail," said Sam, and explained "our backs" by pointing to Michel and Si at work in the yard.
"The road goes as far as the creek," suggested Yan; "let's make a raft there an' take the lot in it down to the swimming-pond; that'd be real Injun."
"What'll ye make the raft of?" asked Raften.
"Cedar rails nailed together," answered Sam.
"No nails in mine," objected Yan; "that isn't Injun."
"An' none o' my cedar rails fur that. 'Pears to me it'd be less work an' more Injun to pack the stuff on yer backs an' no risk o' wettin' the beds."
So the raft was given up, and the stuff was duly carted to the creek's side. Raften himself went with it. He was a good deal of a boy at heart and he was much in sympathy with the plan. His remarks showed a mixture of interest, and doubt as to the wisdom of letting himself take so much interest.
"Hayre, load me up," he said, much to the surprise of the boys, as they came to the creek's edge. His broad shoulders carried half of the load. The blazed trail was only two hundred yards long, and in two trips the stuff was all dumped down in front of the teepee.
Sam noted with amusement the unexpected enthusiasm of his father. "Say, Da, you're just as bad as we are. I believe you'd like to join us."
"'Moinds me o' airly days here," was the reply, with a wistful note in his voice. "Many a night me an' Caleb Clark slep' out this way on this very crick when them fields was solid bush. Do ye know how to make a bed?"
"Don't know a thing," and Sam winked at Yan. "Show us."
"I'll show ye the rale thing. Where's the axe?"
"Haven't any," said Yan. "There's a big tomahawk and a little tomahawk."
Raften grinned, took the big "tomahawk" and pointed to a small Balsam Fir. "Now there's a foine bed-tree."
"Why, that's a fire-tree, too," said Yan, as with two mighty strokes Raften sent it toppling down, then rapidly trimmed it of its flat green boughs. A few more strokes brought down a smooth young Ash and cut it into four pieces, two of them seven feet long and two of them five feet. Next he cut a White Oak sapling and made four sharp pegs each two feet long.
"Now, boys, whayer do you want yer bed?" then stopping at a thought he added, "Maybe ye didn't want me to help--want to do everything yerselves?"
"Ugh, bully good squaw. Keep it up--wagh!" said his son and heir, as he calmly sat on a log and wore his most "Injun brave" expression of haughty approval.
The father turned with an inquiring glance to Yan, who replied:
"We're mighty glad of your help. You see, we don't know how. It seems to me that I read once the best place in the teepee is opposite the door and a little to one side. Let's make it here." So Raften placed the four logs for the sides and ends of the bed and drove in the ground the four stakes to hold them. Yan brought in several armfuls of branches, and Raften proceeded to lay them like shingles, beginning at the head-log of the bed and lapping them very much. It took all the fir boughs, but when all was done there was a solid mass of soft green tips a foot thick, all the butts being at the ground.
"Thayer," said Raften, "that's an _Injun feather bed_ an' safe an' warrum. Slapin' on the ground's terrible dangerous, but that's all right. Now make your bed on that." Sam and Yan did so, and when it was finished Raften said: "Now, fetch that little canvas I told yer ma to put in; that's to fasten to the poles for an inner tent over the bed."
Yan stood still and looked uncomfortable.
"Say, Da, look at Yan. He's got that tired look that he wears when the rules is broke."
"What's wrong," asked Raften.
"Indians don't have them that I ever heard of," said Little Beaver.
"Yan, did ye iver hear of a teepee linin' or a dew-cloth?"
"Yes," was the answer, in surprise at the unexpected knowledge of the farmer.
"Do ye know what they're like?"
"No--at least--no--"
"Well, _I do_; that's what it's like. That's something I do know, fur I seen old Caleb use wan."
"Oh, I remember reading about it now, and they are like that, and it's on them that the Indians paint their records. Isn't that bully," as he saw Raften add two long inner stakes which held the dew-cloth like a canopy.
"Say, Da, I never knew you and Caleb were hunting together. Thought ye were jest natural born enemies."
"Humph!" grunted Raften. "We wuz chums oncet. Never had no fault to find till we swapped horses."
"Sorry you ain't now, 'cause he's sure sharp in the woods."
"He shouldn't a-tried to make an orphan out o' you."
"Are you sure he done it?"
"If 'twasn't him I dunno who 'twas. Yan, fetch some of them pine knots thayer."
Yan went after the knots; it was some yards into the woods, and out there he was surprised to see a tall man behind a tree. A second's glance showed it to be Caleb. The Trapper laid one finger on his lips and shook his head. Yan nodded assent, gathered the knots, and went back to the camp, where Sam continued:
"You skinned him out of his last cent, old Boyle says."
"An' whoi not, when he throid to shkin me? Before that I was helpin' him, an' fwhat must he do but be ahfter swappin' horses. He might as well ast me to play poker and then squeal when I scooped the pile. Naybours is wan thing an' swappin' horses is another. All's fair in a horse trade, an' friends didn't orter swap horses widout they kin stand the shkinnin'. That's a game by itself. Oi would 'a' helped him jest the same afther that swap an' moore, fur he wuz good stuff, but he must nades shoot at me that noight as I come home wit the wad, so av coorse--"
"I wish ye had a Dog now," said the farmer in the new tone of a new subject; "tramps is a nuisance at all toimes, an' a Dog is the best med'cine for them. I don't believe old Cap'd stay here; but maybe yer near enough to the house so they won't bother ye. An' now I guess the Paleface will go back to the settlement. I promised ma that I'd see that yer bed wuz all right, an' if ye sleep warrum an' dry an' hev plenty to ate ye'll take no harrum."
So he turned away, but as he was quitting the clearing he stopped,--the curious boyish interest was gone from his face, the geniality from his voice--then in his usual stern tones of command:
[Illustration: "If ye kill any Song-birds, I'll use the rawhoide on ye."]
"Now, bhoys, ye kin shoot all the Woodchucks yer a mind ter, fur they are a nuisance in the field. Yer kin kill Hawks an' Crows an' Jays, fur they kill other birds, an' Rabbits an' Coons, fur they are fair game; but I don't want to hear of yer killin' any Squirrels or Chipmunks or Song-birds, an' if ye do I'll stop the hull thing an' bring ye back to wurruk, an' use the rawhoide on tap o' that."
II
The First Night and Morning
It was a strange new feeling that took possession of the boys as they saw Mr. Raften go, and when his step actually died away on the blazed trail they felt that they were really and truly alone in the woods and camping out. To Yan it was the realization of many dreams, and the weirdness of it was helped by the remembrance of the tall old man he had seen watching them from behind the trees. He made an excuse to wander out there, but of course Caleb was gone.
"Fire up," Sam presently called out. Yan was the chief expert with the rubbing-sticks, and within a minute or two he had the fire going in the middle of the teepee and Sam set about preparing the evening meal. This was supposed to be Buffalo meat and Prairie roots (beef and potatoes). It was eaten rather quietly, and then the boys sat down on the opposite sides of the fire. The conversation dragged, then died a natural death; each was busy with his thoughts, and there was, moreover, an impressive and repressive something or other all around them. Not a stillness, for there were many sounds, but beyond those a sort of voiceless background that showed up all the myriad voices. Some of these were evidently Bird, some Insect, and a few were recognized as Tree-frog notes. In the near stream were sounds of splashing or a little plunge.
"Must be Mushrat," whispered Sam to the unspoken query of his friend.
A loud, far "Oho-oho-oho" was familiar to both as the cry of the Horned Owl, but a strange long wail rang out from the trees overhead.
"What's that?"
"Don't know," was all they whispered, and both felt very uncomfortable. The solemnity and mystery of the night was on them and weighing more heavily with the waning light. The feeling was oppressive. Neither had courage enough to propose going to the house or their camping would have ended. Sam arose and stirred the fire, looked around for more wood, and, seeing none, he grumbled (to himself) and stepped outside in the darkness to find some. It was not till long afterward that he admitted having had to _dare_ himself to step out into the darkness. He brought in some sticks and fastened the door as tightly as possible. The blazing fire in the teepee was cheering again. The boys perhaps did not realize that there was actually a tinge of homesickness in their mood, yet both were thinking of the comfortable circle at the house. The blazing fire smoked a little, and Sam said:
"Kin you fix that to draw? You know more about it 'an me."
Yan now forced himself to step outside. The wind was rising and had changed. He swung the smoke poles till the vent was quartering down, then hoarsely whispered, "How's that?"
"That's better," was the reply in a similar tone, though there was no obvious difference yet.
He went inside with nervous haste and fastened up the entrance.
"Let's make a good fire and go to bed."
So they turned in after partly undressing, but not to sleep for hours. Yan in particular was in a state of nervous excitement. His heart had beaten violently when he went out that time, and even now that mysterious dread was on him. The fire was the one comfortable thing. He dozed off, but started up several times at some slight sound. Once it was a peculiar "_Tick, tick, scr-a-a-a-a-pe, lick-scra-a-a-a-a-a-pe,_" down the teepee over his head. "_A Bear_" was his first notion, but on second thoughts he decided it was only a leaf sliding down the canvas. Later he was roused by a "_Scratch, scratch, scratch_" close to him. He listened silently for some time. This was no leaf; it was an _animal!_ Yes, surely--it was a Mouse. He slapped the canvas violently and "hissed" till it went away, but as he listened he heard again that peculiar wail in the tree-tops. It almost made his hair sit up. He reached out and poked the fire together into a blaze. All was still and in time he dozed off. Once more he was wide awake in a flash and saw Sam sitting up in bed listening.
[Illustration: "Where's the axe?"]
"What is it, Sam?" he whispered.
"I dunno. Where's the axe?"
"Right here."
"Let me have it on my side. You kin have the hatchet."
But they dropped off at last and slept soundly till the sun was strong on the canvas and filling the teepee with a blaze of transmitted light.
"Woodpecker! Woodpecker! Get up! Get up! Hi-e-yo! Hi-e-yo! Double-u-double-o-d-bang-fizz-whackety-whack-y-r-chuck- brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-Woodpecker," shouted Yan to his sleepy chum, quoting a phrase that Sam when a child had been taught as the true spelling of his nickname.
Sam woke slowly, but knowing perfectly where he was, and drawled:
"Get up yourself. You're cook to-day, an' I'll take my breakfast in bed. Seems like my knee is broke out again."
"Oh, get up, and let's have a swim before breakfast."
"No, thank you, I'm too busy just now; 'sides, it's both cold and wet in that pond, this time o' day."
The morning was fresh and bright; many birds were singing, although it was July, a Red-eyed Vireo and a Robin were in full song; and as Yan rose to get the breakfast he wondered why he had been haunted by such strange feelings the night before. It was incomprehensible now. He wished that appalling wail in the tree-tops would sound again, so he might trace it home.
There still were some live coals in the ashes, and in a few minutes he had a blazing fire, with the pot boiling for coffee, and the bacon in the fryer singing sweetest music for the hungry.
Sam lay on his back watching his companion and making critical remarks.
"You may be an A1 cook--at least, I hope you are, but you don't know much about fire-wood," said he. "Now look at that," as one huge spark after another exploded from the fire and dropped on the bed and the teepee cover.
"How can I help it?"
"I'll bet Da's best cow against your jack-knife you got some Ellum or Hemlock in that fire."
"Well, I have," Yan admitted, with an air of surrender.
"My son," said the Great Chief Woodpecker, "no sparking allowed in the teepee. Beech, Maple, Hickory or Ash never spark. Pine knots an' roots don't, but they make smoke like--like--oh--you know. Hemlock, Ellum, Chestnut, Spruce and Cedar is public sparkers, an' not fit for dacint teepee sassiety. Big Injun heap hate noisy, crackling fire. Enemy hear that, an'--an'--it burns his bedclothes."
"All right, Grandpa," and the cook made a mental note, then added in tones of deadly menace, "You get up now, do you understand!" and he picked up a bucket of water.
"That might scare the Great Chief Woodpecker if the Great Chief Cook had a separate bed, but now he smiles kind o' scornful," was all the satisfaction he got. Then seeing that breakfast really was ready, Sam scrambled out a few minutes later. The coffee acted like an elixir--their spirits rose, and before the meal was ended it would have been hard to find two more hilarious and enthusiastic campers. Even the vague terrors of the night were now sources of amusement.
III
A Crippled Warrior and the Mud Albums
"Say, Sam; what about Guy? Do we want him?"
"Well, it's just like this. If it was at school or any other place I wouldn't be bothered with the dirty little cuss, but out in the woods like this one feels kind o' friendly, an' three's better than two. Besides, he has been admitted to the Tribe already."
"Yes, that's what I say. Let's give him a _yell_."
So the boys uttered a long yell, produced by alternating the voice between a high falsetto and a natural tone. This was the "yell," and had never failed to call Guy forth to join them unless he had some chore on hand and his "Paw" was too near to prevent his renegading to the Indians. He soon appeared waving a branch, the established signal that he came as a friend.
He came very slowly, however, and the boys saw that he limped frightfully, helping himself along with a stick. He was barefoot, as usual, but his left foot was swaddled in a bundle of rags.
"Hello, Sappy; what happened? Out to Wounded Knee River?"
"Nope. Struck luck. Paw was bound I'd ride the Horse with the scuffler all day, but he gee'd too short an' I arranged to tumble off'n him, an' Paw cuffled me foot some. Law! how I did holler! You should 'a' heard me."
[Illustration: "He soon appeared, waving a branch."]
"Bet we did," said Sam. "When was it?"
"Yesterday about four."
"Exactly. We heard an awful screech and Yan says, says he, 'There's the afternoon train at Kelly's Crossing, but ain't she late?'
"'Train!' says I. 'Pooh. I'll bet that's Guy Burns getting a new licking.'"
"Guess I'll well up now," said War Chief Sapwood, so stripped his foot, revealing a scratch that would not have cost a thought had he got it playing ball. He laid the rags away carefully and with them every trace of the limp, then entered heartily into camp life.
The vast advantage of being astir early now was seen. There were Squirrels in every other tree, there were birds on every side, and when they ran to the pond a wild Duck spattered over the surface and whistled out of sight.
"What you got?" called Sam, as he saw Yan bending eagerly over something down by the pond.
Yan did not answer, and so Sam went over and saw him studying out a mark in the mud. He was trying to draw it in his note-book.
"What is it?" repeated Sam.
"Don't know. Too stubby for a Muskrat, too much claw for a Cat, too small for a Coon, too many toes for a Mink."
"I'll bet it's a Whangerdoodle."
Yan merely chuckled in answer to this.
"Don't you laugh," said the Woodpecker, solemnly, "You'd be more apt to cry if you seen one walk into the teepee blowing the whistle at the end of his tail. Then it'd be, 'Oh, Sam, where's the axe?'"
"Tell you what I do believe it is," said Yan, not noticing this terrifying description; "it's a Skunk."
"Little Beaver, my son! I thought I would tell you, then I sez to meself, 'No; it's better for him to find out by his lone. Nothing like a struggle in early life to develop the stuff in a man. It don't do to help him too much,' sez I, an' so I didn't."
Here Sam condescendingly patted the Second War Chief on the head and nodded approvingly. Of course he did not know as much about the track as Yan did, but he prattled on:
"Little Beaver! you're a heap struck on tracks--Ugh--good! You kin tell by them everything that passes in the night. Wagh! Bully! You're likely to be the naturalist of our Tribe. But you ain't got gumption. Now, in this yer hunting-ground of our Tribe there is only one place where you can see a track, an' that is that same mud-bank; all the rest is hard or grassy. Now, what I'd do if I was a Track-a-mist, I'd give the critters lots o' chance to leave tracks. I'd fix it all round with places so nothing could come or go 'thout givin' us his impressions of the trip. I'd have one on each end of the trail coming in, an' one on each side of the creek where it comes in an' goes out."
"Well, Sam, you have a pretty level head. I wonder I didn't think of that myself."
"My son, the Great Chief does the thinking. It's the rabble--that's you and Sappy--that does the work."
But all the same he set about it at once with Yan, Sappy following with a _slight limp now_. They removed the sticks and rubbish for twenty feet of the trail at each end and sprinkled this with three or four inches of fine black loam. They cleared off the bank of the stream at four places, one at each side where it entered the woods, and one at each side where it went into the Burns's Bush.
"Now," said Sam, "there's what I call visitors' albums like the one that Phil Leary's nine fatties started when they got their brick house and their swelled heads, so every one that came in could write their names an' something about 'this happy, happy, ne'er-to-be-forgotten visit'--them as could write. Reckon that's where our visitors get the start, for all of ours kin write that has feet."
"Wonder why I didn't think o' that," said Yan, again and again. "But there's one thing you forget," he said. "We want one around the teepee."
This was easily made, as the ground was smooth and bare there, and Sappy forgot his limp and helped to carry ashes and sand from the fire-hole. Then planting his broad feet down in the dust, with many snickers, he left some very interesting tracks.
"I call that a bare track" said Sam.
"Go ahead and draw it," giggled Sappy
"Why not?" and Yan got out his book.
"Bet you can't make it life-size," and Sam glanced from the little note-book to the vast imprint.
After it was drawn, Sam said, "Guess I'll peel off and show you a human track." He soon gave an impression of his foot for the artist, and later Yan added his own; the three were wholly different.
"Seems to me it would be about right, if you had the ways the toes pointed and the distance apart to show how long the legs wuz."
Again Sam had given Yan a good idea. From that time he noted these two points and made his records much better.
"Air you fellers roostin' here now?" said Sappy in surprise, as he noted the bed as well as the pots and pans.
"Yep."
"Well, I wanter, too. If I kin git hol' o' Maw 'thout Paw, it'll be O.K."
"You let on we don't want you and Paw'll let you come. Tell him Ole Man Raften ordered you off the place an' he'll fetch you here himself."
"I guess there's room enough in that bed fur three," remarked the Third War Chief.
"Well, I guess there ain't," said Woodpecker. "Not when the third one won first prize for being the dirtiest boy in school. You can get stuff an' make your own bed, across there on the other side the fire."
"Don't know how."
"We'll show you, only you'll have to go home for blankets an' grub."
The boys soon cut a Fir-bough bed, but Guy put off going home for the blankets as long as he could. He knew and they suspected that there was no chance of his rejoining them again that day. So after sundown he replaced his foot-rags and limped down the trail homeward, saying, "I'll be back in a few minutes," and the boys knew perfectly well that he would not.
The evening meal was over; they had sat around wondering if the night would repeat its terrors. An Owl "Hoo-hoo-ed" in the trees. There was a pleasing romance in the sound. The boys kept up the fire till about ten, then retired, determined that they would not be scared this time. They were barely off to sleep when the most awful outcry arose in the near woods, like "a Wolf with a sore throat," then the yells of a human being in distress. Again the boys sat up in fright. There was a scuffling outside--a loud and terrified "Hi--hi--hi--Sam!" Then an attack was made on the door. It was torn open, and in tumbled Guy. He was badly frightened; but when the fire was lighted and he calmed down a little he confessed that Paw had sent him to bed, but when all was still he had slipped out the window, carrying the bedclothes. He was nearly back to the camp when he decided to scare the boys by letting off a few wolfish howls, but he made himself very scary by doing it, and when a wild answer came from the tree-tops--a hideous, blaring screech--he lost all courage, dropped the bedding, and ran toward the teepee yelling for help.
The boys took torches presently and went nervously in search of the missing blankets. Guy's bed was made and in an hour they were once more asleep.
In the morning Sam was up and out first. From the home trail he suddenly called:
"Yan, come here."
"Do you mean me?" said Little Beaver, with haughty dignity.
"Yep, Great Chief; git a move on you. Hustle out here. Made a find. Do you see who was visiting us last night while we slept?" and he pointed to the "album" on the inway. "I hain't shined them shoes every week with soot off the bottom of the pot without knowin' that one pair of 'em was wore by Ma an' one of 'em by Da. But let's see how far they come. Why, I orter looked round the teepee before tramplin' round." They went back, and though the trails were much hidden by their own, they found enough around the doorway to show that during the night, or more likely late in the evening, the father and mother had paid them a visit in secret--had inspected the camp as they slept, but finding no one stirring and the boys breathing the deep breath of healthy sleep, they had left them undisturbed.
"Say, boys--I mean Great Chiefs--what we want in camp is a Dog, or one of these nights some one will steal our teeth out o' our heads an' we won't know a thing till they come back for the gums. All Injun camps have Dogs, anyway."
The next morning the Third War Chief was ordered out by the Council, first to wash himself clean, then to act as cook for the day. He grumbled as he washed, that "'Twan't no good--he'd be all dirty again in two minutes," which was not far from the truth. But he went at the cooking with enthusiasm, which lasted nearly an hour. After this he did not see any fun in it, and for once he, as well as the others, began to realize how much was done for them at home. At noon Sappy set out nothing but dirty dishes, and explained that so long as each got his own it was all right. His foot was very troublesome at meal time also. He said it was the moving round when he was hurrying that made it so hard to bear, but in their expedition with bows and arrows later on he found complete relief.
"Say, look at the Red-bird," he shouted, as a Tanager flitted onto a low branch and blazed in the sun. "Bet I hit him first shot!" and he drew an arrow.
"Here you, Saphead," said Sam, "quit that shooting at little birds. It's bad medicine. It's against the rules; it brings bad luck--it brings awful bad luck. I tell you there ain't no worse luck than Da's raw-hide--that I know."
"Why, what's the good o' playin' Injun if we can't shoot a blame thing?" protested Sappy.
"You kin shoot Crows an' Jays if you like, an' Woodchucks, too."
"I know where there's a Woodchuck as big as a Bear."
"Ah! What size Bear?"
"Well, it is. You kin laugh all you want to. He has a den in our clover field, an' he made it so big that the mower dropped in an' throwed Paw as far as from here to the crick."
"An' the horses, how did they get out?"
"Well! It broke the machine, an' you should have heard Paw swear. My! but he was a socker. Paw offered me a quarter if I'd kill the old whaler. I borrowed a steel trap an' set it in the hole, but he'd dig out under it an' round it every time. I'll bet there ain't anything smarter'n an old Woodchuck."
"Is he there yet?" asked War Chief No. 2.
"You just bet he is. Why, he has half an acre of clover all eat up."
"Let's try to get him," said Yan. "Can we find him?"
"Well, I should say so. I never come by but I see the old feller. He's so big he looks like a calf, an' so old an' wicked he's gray-headed."
"Let's have a shot at him," suggested the Woodpecker. "He's fair game. Maybe your Paw'll give us a quarter each if we kill him."
Guy snickered. "Guess you don't know my Paw," then he giggled bubblously through his nose again.
Arrived at the edge of the clover, Sam asked, "Where's your Woodchuck?"
"Right in there."
"I don't see him."
"Well, he's always here."
"Not now, you bet."
"Well, this is the very first time I ever came here and didn't see him. Oh, I tell you, he's a fright. I'll bet he's a blame sight bigger'n that stump."
"Well, here's his track, anyway," said Woodpecker, pointing to some tracks he had just made unseen with his own broad palm.
"Now," said Sappy, in triumph. "Ain't he an old socker?"
"Sure enough. You ain't missed any cows lately, have you? Wonder you ain't scared to live anyways near!"
IV
A "Massacree" of Palefaces
"Say, fellers, I know where there's a stavin' Birch tree--do you want any bark?"
"Yes, I want some," said Little Beaver.
"But hold on; I guess we better not, coz it's right on the edge o' our bush, an' Paw's still at the turnips."
"Now if you want a real war party," said the Head Chief, "let's massacree the Paleface settlement up the crick and get some milk. We're just out, and I'd like to see if the place has changed any."
So the boys hid their bows and arrows and headdresses, and, forgetting to take a pail, they followed in Indian file the blazed trail, carefully turning in their toes as they went and pointing silently to the track, making signs of great danger. First they crawled up, under cover of one of the fences, to the barn. The doors were open and men working at something. A pig wandered in from the barnyard. Then the boys heard a sudden scuffle, and a squeal from the pig as it scrambled out again, and Raften's voice: "Consarn them pigs! Them boys ought to be here to herd them." This was sufficiently alarming to scare the Warriors off in great haste. They hid in the huge root-cellar and there held a council of war.
"Here, Great Chiefs of Sanger," said Yan, "behold I take three straws. That long one is for the Great Woodpecker, the middle size is for Little Beaver, and the short thick one with the bump on the end and a crack on top is Sappy. Now I will stack them up in a bunch and let them fall, then whichever way they point we must go, for this is Big Medicine."
So the straws fell. Sam's straw pointed nearly to the house, Yan's a little to the south of the house, and Guy's right back home.
"Aha, Sappy, you got to go home; the straw says so."
"I ain't goin' to believe no such foolishness."
"It's awful unlucky to go against it."
"I don't care, I ain't goin' back," said Guy doggedly.
"Well, my straw says go to the house; that means go scouting for milk, I reckon."
Yan's straw pointed toward the garden, and Guy's to the residence and grounds of "J.G. Burns, Esq."
"I don't care," said Sappy, "I ain't goin'. I am goin' after some of them cherries in your orchard, an' 'twon't be the first time, neither."
"We kin meet by the Basswood at the foot of the lane with whatever we get," said the First War Chief, as he sneaked into the bushes and crawled through the snake fence and among the nettles and manure heaps on the north side of the barnyard till he reached the woodshed adjoining the house. He knew where the men were, and he could guess where his mother was, but he was worried about the Dog. Old Cap might be on the front doorstep, or he might be prowling at just the wrong place for the Injun plan. The woodshed butted on the end of the kitchen. The milk was kept in the cellar, and one window of the cellar opened into a dark corner of the woodshed. This was easily raised, and Sam scrambled down into the cool damp cellar. Long rows of milk pans were in sight on the shelves. He lifted the cover of the one he knew to be the last put there and drank a deep, long draught with his mouth down to it, then licked the cream from his lips and remembered that he had come without a pail. But he knew where to get one. He went gently up the stairs, avoiding steps Nos. 1 and 7 because they were "creakers," as he found out long ago, when he used to 'hook' maple sugar from the other side of the house. The door at the top was closed and buttoned, but he put his jack-knife blade through the crack and turned the button. After listening awhile and hearing no sound in the kitchen, he gently opened the squeaky old door. There was no one to be seen but the baby, sound asleep in her cradle. The outer door was open, but no Dog lying on the step as usual. Over the kitchen was a garret entered by a trap-door and a ladder. The ladder was up and the trap-door open, but all was still. Sam stood over the baby, grunted, "Ugh, Paleface papoose," raised his hand as if wielding a war club, aimed a deadly blow at the sleeping cherub, then stooped and kissed her rosy mouth so lightly that her pink fists went up to rub it at once. He now went to the pantry, took a large pie and a tin pail, then down into the cellar again. He, at first, merely closed the door behind him and was leaving it so, but remembered that Minnie might awaken and toddle around till she might toddle into the cellar, therefore he turned the button so that just a corner showed over the crack, closed the door and worked with his knife blade on that corner till the cellar was made as safe as before. He now escaped with his pie and pail.
Meanwhile his mother's smiling face beamed out of the dark loft. Then she came down the ladder. She had seen him come and enter the cellar, by chance she was in the loft when he reached the kitchen, but she had kept quiet to enjoy the joke.
Next time the Woodpecker went to the cellar he found a paper with this on it: "_Notice_ to hostile Injuns--Next time you massacree this settlement, bring back the pail, and don't leave the covers off the milk pans."
Yan had followed the fence that ran south of the house. There was plenty of cover, but he crawled on hands and knees, going right down on his breast when he came to places more open than the rest. In this way he had nearly reached the garden when he heard a noise behind and, turning, he saw Sappy.
"Here, what are you following me for? Your straw pointed the other way. You ain't playing fair."
"Well, I don't care, I ain't going home. _You_ fixed it up so my straw would point that way. It ain't fair, an' I won't do it."
"You got no right following me."
"I ain't following you, but you keep going just the place I want to go. It's you following me, on'y keepin' ahead. I told you I was after cherries."
"Well, the cherries are that way and I'm going this way, and I don't want you along."
"You couldn't get me if you wanted me."
"Erh----"
"Erh----"
So Sappy went cherryward and Yan waited awhile, then crawled toward the fruit garden. After twenty or thirty yards more, he saw a gleam of red, then under it a bright yellow eye glaring at him. He had chanced on a hen sitting on her nest. He came nearer, she took alarm and ran away, not clucking, but cackling loudly. There were a dozen eggs of two different styles, all bright and clean, and the hen's comb was bright red. Yan knew hens. This was easy to read: Two stray hens laying in one nest, and neither of them sitting yet.
"So ho! Straws show which way the hens go."
He gathered up the eggs into his hat and crawled back toward the tree where all had to meet.
But before he had gone far he heard a loud barking, then yells for help, and turned in time to see Guy scramble up a tree while Cap, the old Collie, barked savagely at him from below. Now that he was in no danger Sappy had the sense to keep quiet. Yan came back as quickly as possible. The Dog at once recognized and obeyed _him_, but doubtless was much puzzled to make out why he should be pelted back to the house when he had so nobly done his duty by the orchard.
"Now, you see, maybe next time you'll do what the medicine straw tells you. Only for me you'd been caught and fed to the pigs, sure."
"Only for you I wouldn't have come. I wasn't scared of your old Dog, anyway. Just in about two minutes more I was comin' down to kick the stuffin' out o' him myself."
"Perhaps you'd like to go back and do it now. I'll soon call him."
"Oh, I hain't got time now, but some other time--Let's find Sam."
So they foregathered at the tree, and laden with their spoils, they returned gloriously to camp.
V
The Deer Hunt
That evening they had a feast and turned in to sleep at the usual hour. The night passed without special alarm. Once about daylight Sappy called them, saying he believed there was a Bear outside, but he had a trick of grinding his teeth in his sleep, and the other boys told him that was the Bear he heard.
Yan went around to the mud albums and got some things he could not make out and a new mark that gave him a sensation. He drew it carefully. It was evidently the print of a small sharp hoof. This was what he had hungered for so long. He shouted, "Sam--Sam--Sapwood, come here; here's a _Deer track_."
The boys shouted back, "Ah, what you givin' us now!" "Call off your Dog!" and so forth.
But Yan persisted. The boys were so sure it was a trick that they would not go for some time, then the sun had risen high, shining straight down on the track instead of across, so it became very dim. Soon the winds, the birds and the boys themselves helped to wipe it out. But Yan had his drawing, and persisted in spite of the teasing that it was true.
At length Guy said aside to Sam: "Seems to me a feller that hunts tracks so terrible serious ought to see the critter _some time_. 'Tain't right to let him go on sufferin'. _I_ think he ought to see that Deer. We ought to help him." Here he winked a volley or two and made signs for Sam to take Yan away.
This was easily done.
"Let's see if your Deer went out by the lower mud album." So they walked down that way, while Guy got an old piece of sacking, stuffed it with grass, and, hastily tying it in the form of a Deer's head, stuck it on a stick. He put in two flat pieces of wood for ears, took charcoal and made two black spots for eyes and one for a nose, then around each he drew a ring of blue clay from the bed of the brook. This soon dried and became white. Guy now set up this head in the bushes, and when all was ready he ran swiftly and silently through the wood to find Sam and Yan. He beckoned vigorously and called under his voice: "Sam--Yan--a Deer! Here's that there Deer that made them tracks, I believe."
Guy would have failed to convince Yan if Sam had not looked so much interested. They ran back to the teepee, got their bows and arrows, then, guided by Guy, who, however, kept back, they crawled to where he had seen the Deer.
"There--there, now, ain't he a Deer? There--see him move!"
Yan's first feeling was a most exquisite thrill of pleasure. It was like the uplift of joy he had had the time he got his book, but was stronger. The savage impulse to kill came quickly, and his bow was in his hand, but he hesitated.
"Shoot! Shoot!" said Sam and Guy.
Yan wondered why _they_ did not shoot. He turned, and in spite of his agitation he saw that they were making fun of him. He glanced at the Deer again, moved up a little closer and saw the trick.
Then they hooted aloud. Yan was a little crestfallen. Oh, it had been such an exquisite feeling! The drop was long and hard, but he rallied quickly.
"I'll shoot your Deer for you," he said, and sent an arrow close under it.
"Well, I kin beat that," and Sam and Guy both fired. Sam's arrow stuck in the Deer's nose. At that he gave a yell; then all shot till the head was stuck full of arrows, and they returned to the teepee to get dinner. They were still chaffing Yan about the Deer when he said slowly to Guy:
"Generally you are not so smart as you think you are, but this time you're smarter. You've given me a notion."
So after dinner he got a sack about three feet long and stuffed it full of dry grass; then he made a small sack about two and a half feet long and six inches thick, but with an elbow in it and pointed at one end. This he also stuffed with hay and sewed with a bone needle to the big sack. Next he cut four sticks of soft pine for legs and put them into the four corners of the big sack, wrapping them with bits of sacking to be like the rest. Then he cut two ears out of flat sticks; painted black eyes and nose with a ring of white around each, just as Sappy had done, but finally added a black spot on each side of the body, and around that a broad gray hand. Now he had completed what every one could see was meant for a Deer.
The other boys helped a little, but not did cease to chaff him.
"Who's to be fooled this time?" asked Guy.
"You," was the answer.
"I'll bet you'll get buck fever the first time you come across it," chuckled the Head Chief.
"Maybe I will, but you'll all have a chance. Now you fellers stay here and I'll hide the Deer. Wait till I come back."
So Yan ran off northward with the dummy, then swung around to the east and hid it at a place quite out of the line that he first took. He returned nearly to where he came out, shouting "Ready!"
Then the hunters sallied forth fully armed, and Yan explained: "First to find it counts ten and has first shot. If he misses, next one can walk up five steps and shoot; if he misses, next walks five steps more, and so on until the Deer is hit. Then all the shooting must be done from the place where that arrow was fired. A shot in the heart counts ten; in the gray counts five; that's a body wound--and a hit outside of that counts one--that's a scratch. If the Deer gets away without a shot in the heart, then I count twenty-five, and the first one to find it is Deer for next hunt--twelve shots each is the limit."
The two hunters searched about for a long time. Sam made disparaging remarks about the trail this Deer _did not_ leave, and Guy sneaked and peaked in every thicket.
Sappy was not an athlete nor an intellectual giant, but his little piggy eyes were wonderfully sharp and clear.
"I see him," he yelled presently, and pointed out the place seventy-five yards away where he saw one ear and part of the head.
"Tally ten for Sappy," and Yan marked it down.
Guy was filled with pride at his success. He made elaborate preparation to shoot, remarking, "I could 'a' seen it twicet as far--if--if--if--it was--if I had a fair chance."
He drew his bow and left fly. The arrow went little more than half way. So Sam remarked, "Five steps up I kin go. It don't say nothing about how long the steps?"
"No."
"Well, here goes," and he began the most wonderful Kangaroo hops that he could do. He covered about thirty feet in those five steps, and by swerving a little aside he got a good view of the Deer. He was now less than sixty-five yards away. He fired and missed. Now Guy had the right to walk up five steps. He also missed. Finally at thirty yards Sam sent an arrow close past a tree, deep in the Deer's gray flank.
"Bully shot! Body wound! Count five for the Great War Chief. All shooting from this spot now," said Yan, "and I don't know why I shouldn't shoot as well as the others."
"Coz you're the Deer and that'd be suicide," was Sam's objection. "But it's all right. You won't hit."
The objection was not sustained, and Yan tried his luck also. Two or three shots in the brown of the Deer's haunch, three or four into the tree that stood half way between, but nearly in line, a shot or two into the nose, then "Hooray!" a shot from Guy right into the Deer's heart put an end to the chase. Now they went up to draw and count the arrows.
Guy was ahead with a heart shot, ten, a body wound, five, and a scratch, one, that's sixteen, with ten more for finding it--twenty-six points. Sam followed with two body wounds and two scratches--twelve points, and Yan one body wound and five scratches--ten points. The Deer looked like an old Porcupine when they came up to it, and Guy, bursting with triumph, looked like a young Emperor.
"I tell you it takes me to larn you fellers to Deer hunt. I'll bet I'll hit him in the heart first thing next time."
"I'll bet you won't, coz you'll be Deer and can't shoot till we both have."
Guy thought this the finest game he had ever played. He pranced away with the dummy on his back, scheming as he went to make a puzzle for the others. He hid the Deer in a dense thicket east of the camp, then sneaked around to the west of the camp and yelled "Ready!" They had a long, tedious search and had to give it up.
"Now what to do? Who counts?" asked the Woodpecker.
"When Deer escapes it counts twenty-five," replied the inventer of the game; and again Guy was ahead.
"This is the bulliest game I ever seen" was his ecstatic remark.
"Seems to me there's something wrong; that Deer ought to have a trail."
"That's so," assented Yan. "Wonder if he couldn't drag an old root!"
"If there was snow it'd be easy."
"I'll tell you, Sam; we'll tear up paper and leave a paper trail."
"Now you're talking." So all ran to camp. Every available scrap of wrapping paper was torn up small and put in a "scent bag."
Since no one found the Deer last time, Guy had the right to hide it again.
He made a very crooked trail and a very careful hide, so that the boys nearly walked onto the Deer before they saw it about fifteen yards away. Sam scored ten for the find. He fired and missed. Yan now stepped up his five paces and fired so hastily that he also missed. Guy now had a shot at it at five yards, and, of course, hit the Deer in the heart. This succession of triumphs swelled his head nearly to the bursting point, and his boasting passed all bounds. But it now became clear that there must be a limit to the stepping up. So the new rule was made, "No stepping up nearer than fifteen paces."
The game grew as they followed it. Its resemblance to real hunting was very marked. The boys found that they could follow the trail, or sweep the woods with their eyes as they pleased, and find the game, but the wisest way was a combination. Yan was too much for the trail, Sam too much for the general lookout, but Guy seemed always in luck. His little piglike eyes took in everything, and here at length he found a department in which he could lead. It looked as though little pig-eyed Guy was really cut out for a hunter. He made a number of very clever hidings of the Deer. Once he led the trail to the pond, then, across, and right opposite he put the Deer in full view, so that they saw it at once in the open; they were obliged either to shoot across the pond, or step farther away round the edge, or step into the deep water, and again Guy scored. It was found necessary to bar hiding the Deer on a ridge and among stones, because in one case arrows which missed were lost in the bushes and in the other they were broken.
They played this game so much that they soon found a new difficulty. The woods were full of paper trails, and there was no means of deciding which was the old and which the new. This threatened to end the fun altogether. But Yan hit on the device of a different colour of paper. This gave them a fresh start, but their supply was limited. There was paper everywhere in the woods now, and it looked as though the game was going to kill itself, when old Caleb came to pay them a visit. He always happened round as though it was an accident, but the boys were glad to see him, as he usually gave some help.
"Ye got some game, I see," and the old man's eye twinkled as he noted the dummy, now doing target duty on the forty-yard range. "Looks like the real thing. Purty good--purty good." He chuckled as he learned about the Deer hunt, and a sharp observer might have discerned a slight increase of interest when he found that it was not Sam Raften that was the "crack" hunter.
"Good fur you, Guy Burns. Me an' your Paw hev hunted Deer together on this very crik many a time."
When he learned the difficulty about the scent, he said "Hm," and puffed at his pipe for awhile in silence. Then at length:
"Say, Yan, why don't you and Guy get a bag o' wheat or Injun corn for scent: that's better than paper, an' what ye lay to-day is all clared up by the birds and Squirrels by to-morrow."
"Bully!" shouted Sam. (He had not been addressed at all, but he was not thin-skinned.) Within ten minutes he had organized another "White massacree"--that is, a raid on the home barn, and in half an hour he returned with a peck of corn.
"Now, lemme be Deer," said Caleb. "Give me five minutes' start, then follow as fast as ye like. I'll show ye what a real Deer does."
He strode away bearing the dummy, and in five minutes as they set out on the trail he came striding back again. Oh, but that seemed a long run. The boys followed the golden corn trail--a grain every ten feet was about all they needed now, they were so expert. It was a straight run for a time, then it circled back till it nearly cut itself again (at X, page 298). The boys thought it did so, and claimed the right to know, as on a real Deer trail you could tell. So Caleb said, "No, it don't cut the old trail." Where, then, did it go? After beating about, Sam said that the trail looked powerful heavy, like it might be double.
"Bet I know," said Guy. "He's doubled back," which was exactly what he did do, though Caleb gave no sign. Yan looked back on the trail and found where the new one had forked. Guy gave no heed to the ground once he knew the general directions. He ran ahead (toward Y), so did Sam, but Guy glanced back to Yan on the trail to make sure of the line.
They had not gone far beyond the nearest bushes before Yan found another quirk in the trail. It doubled back at Z. He unravelled the double, glanced around, and at O he plainly saw the Deer lying on its side in the grass. He let off a triumphant yell, "Yi, yi, yi, _Deer_!" and the others came running back just in time to see Yan send an arrow straight into its heart.
VI
WAR BONNET, TEEPEE AND COUPS
Forty yards and first shot. Well, that's what the Injuns would call a '_grand coup_,' and Caleb's face wore the same pleasant look as when he made the fire with rubbing-sticks.
"What's a _grand coup?_" asked Little Beaver.
"Oh, I suppose it's a big deed. The Injuns call a great feat a '_coup_,' an' an extra big one a '_grand coup_.' Sounds like French, an' maybe 'tis, but the Injuns says it. They had a regular way of counting their _coup_, and for each they had the right to an Eagle feather in their bonnet, with a red tuft of hair on the end for the extra good ones. At least, they used to. I reckon now they're forgetting it all, and any buck Injun wears just any feather he can steal and stick in his head."
"What do you think of our head-dresses?" Yan ventured.
'Hm! You ain't never seen a real one or you wouldn't go at them that way at all. First place, the feathers should all be white with black tips, an' fastened not solid like that, but loose on a cap of soft leather. Each feather, you see, has a leather loop lashed on the quill end for a lace to run through and hold it to the cap, an' then a string running through the middle of each feather to hold it--just so. Then there are ways of marking each feather to show how it was got. I mind once I was out on a war party with a lot of Santees--that's a brand of Sioux--an' we done a lot o' sneaking an' stealing an' scalped some of the enemy. Then we set out for home, and when we was still about thirty miles away we sent on an Injun telegram of good luck. The leader of our crowd set fire to the grass after he had sent two men half a mile away on each side to do the same thing, an' up went three big smokes. There is always some one watching round an Injun village, an' you bet when they seen them three smokes they knowed that we wuz a-coming back with scalps.
"The hull Council come out to meet us, but not too reckless, coz this might have been the trick of enemies to surprise them.
"Well, when we got there, maybe there wasn't a racket. You see, we didn't lose a man, and we brung in a hundred horses and seven scalps. Our leader never said a word to the crowd, but went right up to the Council teepee. He walked in--we followed. There was the Head Chief an' all the Council settin' smoking. Our leader give the '_How_, an' then we all '_Howed_.' Then we sat an' smoked, an' the Chief called on our leader for an account of the little trip. He stood up an' made a speech.
"'Great Chief and Council of my Tribe,' says he. 'After we left the village and the men had purified themselves, we travelled seven days and came to the Little Muddy River. There we found the track of a travelling band of Arapaho. In two days we found their camp, but they were too strong for us, so we hid till night; then I went alone into their camp and found that some of them were going off on a hunt next day. As I left I met a lone warrior coming in. I killed him with my knife. For that I claim a _coup_; and I scalped him--for that I claim another _coup_; an' before I killed him I slapped his face with my hand--for this I claim a _grand coup_; and I brought his horse away with me--for that I claim another _coup_. Is it not so,' sez he, turning to us, and we all yelled '_How! How! How!_' For this fellow, 'Whooping Crane,' was awful good stuff. Then the Council agreed that he should wear three Eagle feathers, the first for killing and scalping the enemy in his own camp--that was a _grand coup_, and the feather had a tuft of red hair on it an' a red spot on the web. The next feather was for slapping the feller's face first, which, of course, made it more risky. This Eagle feather had a red tuft on top an' a red hand on the web; the one for stealing the horse had a horseshoe, but no tuft, coz it wasn't counted A1.
"Then the other Injuns made their claims, an' we all got some kind of honours. I mind one feller was allowed to drag a Fox tail at each heel when he danced, an' another had ten horseshoe marks on an Eagle feather for stealing ten horses, an' I tell you them Injuns were prouder of them feathers than a general would be of his medals."
[Illustration: The War Bonnet (See description below)]
THE INDIAN WAR BONNET--HOW TO MAKE IT
1. The plain white Goose or Turkey feather.
2. The same, with tip dyed black or painted with indelible ink.
3. The same, showing ruff of white down lashed on with wax end.
4. The same, showing leather loop lashed on for the holding lace.
5. The same, viewed edge on.
6. The same, with a red flannel cover sewn and lashed on the quill. This is a '_coup_ feather.'
7. The same, with a tuft of red horsehair lashed on the top to mark a '_grand coup_' and (_a_) a thread through the middle of the rib to hold feather in proper place. This feather is marked with the symbol of a _grand coup_ in target shooting. This symbol may be drawn on an oval piece of paper gummed on the top of the feather.
8. The tip of a feather showing how the red horsehair tuft is lashed on with fine waxed thread.
9. The groundwork of the war bonnet made of any soft leather, (_a_) a broad band to go round the head, laced at the joint or seam behind; (_b_) a broad tail behind as long as needed to hold all the wearer's feathers; (_c_) two leather thongs or straps over the top; (_d_) leather string to tie under the chin; (_e_) the buttons, conchas or side ornaments of shells, silver, horn or wooden discs, even small mirrors and circles of beadwork were used, and sometimes the conchas were left out altogether; they may have the owner's totem on them, usually a bunch of ermine tails hung from each side of the bonnet just below the concha. A bunch of horsehair will answer as well; (_hh_) the holes in the leather for holding the lace of the feather; 24 feathers are needed for the full bonnet, without the tail, so they are put less than an inch apart; (_iii_) the lacing holes on the tail: this is as long as the wearer's feathers call for; some never have any tail.
10. Side view of the leather framework, showing a pattern sometimes used to decorate the front.
11, 12 and 13. Beadwork designs for front band of bonnet; all have white grounds. No. 11 (Arapaho) has green band at top and bottom with red zigzag. No. 12 (Ogallala) has blue band at top and bottom, red triangles; the concha is blue with three white bars and is cut off from the band by a red bar. No. 13 (Sioux) has narrow band above and broad band below blue, the triangle red, and the two little stars blue with yellow centre.
14. The bases of three feathers, showing how the lace comes out of the cap leather, through the eye or loop on the bottom of the quill, and in again.
15. The completed bonnet, showing how the feathers of the crown should spread out, also showing the thread that passes through the middle of each feather on inner side to hold it in place; another thread passes from the point where the two straps (_c_ in 9) join, then down through each feather in the tail.
The Indians now often use the crown of a soft felt hat for the basis of a war bonnet.
N.B. A much easier way to mark the feather is to stick on it near the top an oval of white paper and on this draw the symbol with waterproof ink.
[Illustration: Grand Coup for taking Scalp in Enemy's Camp G.C. for slapping his face Coup for stealing his Horse]
"My, I wish I could go out there and be with those fellows," and Yan sighed as he compared his commonplace lot with all this romantic splendour.
"Guess you'd soon get sick of it. I know _I_ did," was the answer; "forever shooting and killing, never at peace, never more than three meals ahead of starvation and just as often three meals behind. No, siree, no more for me."
"I'd just like to see you start in horse-stealing for honours round here," observed Sam, "though I know who'd get the feathers if it was chicken stealing."
"Say, Caleb," said Guy, who, being friendly and of the country, never thought of calling the old man "Mr. Clark," "didn't they give feathers for good Deer-hunting? I'll bet I could lick any of them at it if I had a gun."
"Didn't you hear me say first thing that that there shot o' Yan's should score a '_grand coup_'?"
"Oh, shucks! I kin lick Yan any time; that was just a chance shot. I'll bet if you give feathers for Deer-hunting I'll get them all."
"We'll take you up on that," said the oldest Chief, but the next interrupted:
"Say, boys, we want to play Injun properly. Let's get Mr. Clark to show us how to make a real war bonnet. Then we'll wear only what feathers we win."
"Ye mean by scalping the Whites an' horse-stealing?"
"Oh, no; there's lots of things we can do--best runner, best Deer hunter, best swimmer, best shot with bow and arrows."
"All right." So they set about questioning Caleb. He soon showed them how to put a war bonnet together, using, in spite of Yan's misgivings, the crown of an old felt hat for the ground work and white goose quills trimmed and dyed black at the tips for Eagle feathers. But when it came to the deeds that were to be rewarded, each one had his own ideas.
"If Sappy will go to the orchard and pick a peck of cherries without old Cap gettin' _him_, I'll give him a feather with all sorts of fixin's on it," suggested Sam.
"Well, I'll bet you can't get a chicken out of our barn 'thout our Dog gettin' _you_, Mr. Smarty."
"Pooh! I ain't stealing chickens. Do you take me for a nigger? I'm a noble Red-man and Head Chief at that, I want you to know, an' I've a notion to collect that scalp you're wearin' now. You know it belongs to me and Yan," and he sidled over, rolling his eye and working his fingers in a way that upset Guy's composure. "And I tell you a feller with one foot in the grave should have his thoughts on seriouser things than chicken-stealing. This yere morbid cravin' for excitement is rooinin' all the young fellers nowadays."
Yan happened to glance at Caleb. He was gazing off at nothing, but there was a twinkle in his eye that Yan never before saw there.
"Let's go to the teepee. It's too hot out here. Come in, won't you, Mr. Clark?"
"Hm. 'Tain't much cooler in here, even if it is shady," remarked the old Trapper. "Ye ought to lift one side of the canvas and get some air."
"Why, did the real Injuns do that?"
"I should say they did. There ain't any way they didn't turn and twist the teepee for comfort. That's what makes it so good. Ye kin live in it forty below zero an' fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in. Real hot weather the thing looks like a spider with skirts on and held high, an' I tell you ye got to know the weather for a teepee. Many a hot night on the plains I've been woke up by hearing 'Tap-tap-tap' all around me in the still black night and wondered why all the squaws was working, but they was up to drop the cover and drive all the pegs deeper, an' within a half hour there never failed to come up a big storm. How they knew it was a-comin' I never could tell. One old woman said a Coyote told her, an' maybe that's true, for they do change their song for trouble ahead; another said it was the flowers lookin' queer at sundown, an' another had a bad dream. Maybe they're all true; it comes o' watchin' little things."
"Do they never get fooled?" asked Little Beaver
'Oncet in awhile, but not near as often as a White-man would.
"I mind once seeing an artist chap, one of them there portygraf takers. He come out to the village with a machine an' took some of the little teepees. Then I said, 'Why don't you get Bull-calf's squaw to put up their big teepee? I tell you that's a howler.' So off he goes, and after dickering awhile he got the squaw to put it up for three dollars. You bet it was a stunner, sure--all painted red, with green an' yaller--animals an' birds an' scalps galore. It made that feller's eyes bug out to see it. He started in to make some portygrafs, then was taking another by hand, so as to get the colours, an' I bet it would have crowded him to do it, but jest when he got a-going the old squaw yelled to the other--the Chief hed two of them--an' lighted out to take down that there teepee. That artist he hollered to stop, said he had hired it to stay up an' a bargain was a bargain. But the old squaw she jest kept on a-jabberin' an' pintin' at the west. Pretty soon they had the hull thing down and rolled up an' that artist a-cussin' like a cow-puncher. Well, I mind it was a fine day, but awful hot, an' before five minutes there come a little dark cloud in the west, then in ten minutes come a-whoopin' a regular small cyclone, an' it went through that village and wrecked all the teepees of any size. That red one would surely have gone only for that smart old squaw."
[Illustration: Bull-Calf's Teepee.]
Under Caleb's directions the breezy side of the cover was now raised a little, and the shady side much more. This changed the teepee from a stifling hothouse into a cool, breezy shade.
"An' when ye want to know which way is the wind, if it's light, ye wet your finger so, an' hold it up. The windy side feels cool at once, and by that ye can set your smoke-flaps."
"I want to know about war bonnets," Yan now put in. "I mean about things to do to wear feathers--that is, things _we_ can do."
"Ye kin have races, an' swimmin' an bownarrer shootin'. I should say if you kin send one o' them arrers two hundred yards that would kill a Buffalo at twenty feet. I'd think that was pretty good. Yes, I'd call that way up."
"What--a _grand coup?_"
"Yes, I reckon; an' if you fell short on'y fifty yards that'd still kill a Deer, an' we could call that a _coup_. If," continued Caleb, "you kin hit that old gunny-sack buck plunk in the heart at fifty yards first shot I'd call that away up; an' if you hit it at seventy-five yards in the heart no matter how many tries, I'd call you a shot. If you kin hit a nine-inch bull's-eye two out of three at forty yards every time an' no fluke, you'd hold your own among Injuns though I must say they don't go in much for shooting at a target. They shoot at 'most anything they see in the woods. I've seen the little copper-coloured kids shooting away at butterflies. Then they have matches--they try who can have most arrers in the air at one time. To have five in the air at once is considered good. It means powerful fast work and far shooting. You got to hold a bunch handy in the left hand fur that. The most I ever seen one man have up at once was eight. That was reckoned 'big medicine,' an' any one that can keep up seven is considered swell."
"Do you know any other things besides bows and arrows that would do?"
"I think that a rubbing-stick fire ought to count," interrupted Sam. "I want that in coz Guy can't do it. Any one who kin do it at all gets a feather, an' any one who kin do it in one minute gets a swagger feather, or whatever you call it; that takes care of Yan and me an' leaves Guy out in the cold."
"I'll bet I kin hunt Deer all round you both, I kin."
"Oh, shut up, Sappy; we're tired a-hearing about your Deer hunting. We're going to abolish that game." Then Sam continued, apparently addressing Caleb, "Do you know any Injun games?"
But Caleb took no notice.
Presently Yan said, "Don't the Injuns play games, Mr. Clark?
"Well, yes, I kin show you two Injun games that will test your eyesight."
"I bet I kin beat any one at it," Guy made haste to tell. "Why, I seen that Deer before Yan could--"
"Oh, shut up, Guy," Yan now exclaimed. A peculiar sound--"_Wheet--wheet--wheet_"--made Sappy turn. He saw Sam with an immense knife, whetting it most vigorously and casting a hungry, fishy glance from time to time to the "yaller moss-tuft" on Guy's neck.
[Illustration: Archery Coup Feathers Their Special Marks Target Coup Feather Long-distance Five-in-air-at once]
"Time has came," he said to nobody in particular.
"You better let me alone," whined Guy, for that horrible "_wheet--wheet_" jarred his nerves somehow. He looked toward Yan, and seeing, as he thought, the suggestion of a smile, he felt more comfortable, but a glance at Sam dispelled his comfort; the Woodpecker's face was absolutely inscrutable and perfectly demoniac with paint.
"Why don't you whet up, Little Beaver? Don't you want your share?" asked the Head Chief through his teeth.
"I vote we let him wear it till he brags again about his Deer-hunting. Then off she comes to the bone," was the reply. "Tell us about the Injun game, Mr. Clark."
"I pretty near forget it now, but le's see. They make two squares on the ground or on two skins; each one is cut up in twenty-five smaller squares with lines like that. Then they have, say, ten rings an' ten nuts or pebbles. One player takes five rings an' five nuts an' sets them around on the squares of one set, an' don't let the other see till all is ready; then the other turns an' looks at it while some one else sings a little song that one of the boys turned into:
"'Ki yi ya--ki yi yee, You think yer smart as ye kin be, You think yer awful quick to see But yer not too quick for me, Ki yi ya--ki yi yee.'
"Then the first square is covered with a basket or anything and the second player must cover the other skin with counters just the same from memory. For every counter he gets on the right square he counts one, and loses one for each on the wrong square."
"I'll bet I kin----" Guy began, but Sam's hand gripped his moss-tuft.
"Here, you let me alone. I ain't bragging. I'm only telling the simple truth."
"Ugh! Better tell some simple lies, then--much safer," said the Great Woodpecker, with horrid calm and meaning. "If ever I lift that scalp you'll catch cold and die, do ye know it?"
Again Yan could see that Caleb had to look far away to avoid taking an apparent interest.
"There's another game. I don't know as it's Injun, but it's the kind o' game where an Injun _could_ win. They first made two six-inch squares of white wood or card, then on each they made rings like a target or squares like the quicksight game, or else two Rabbits the same on each. One feller takes six spots of black, half an inch across, an' sticks them on one, scattering anyhow, an' sets it up a hundred yards off; another feller takes same number of spots an' the other Rabbit an' walks up till he can see to fix his Rabbit the same. If he kin do it at seventy-five yards he's a swell; if he kin do it at sixty yards he's away up, but less than fifty yards is no good. I seen the boys have lots o' fun out o' it. They try to fool each other every way, putting one spot right on another or leaving some off. It's a sure 'nough test of good eyes."
"I'll bet--" began Sappy again, but a loud savage "Grrrr" from Sam, who knew perfectly well what was coming, put a stop to the bet, whatever it was.
"There was two other Injun tests of eyes that I mind now. Some old Buck would show the youngsters the Pleiades--them's the little stars that the Injuns call the Bunch--an' ask 'How many kin you see?' Some could sho'ly see five or six an' some could make out seven. Them as sees seven is mighty well off for eyes. Ye can't see the Pleiades now--they belong to the winter nights; but you kin see the Dipper the hull year round, turning about the North Star. The Injuns call this the 'Broken Back,' an' I've heard the old fellers ask the boys: 'You see the Old Squaw--that's the star, second from the end, the one at the bend of the handle--well, she has a papoose on her back. Kin you see the papoose?' an' sure enough, when my eyes was real good I could see the little baby star tucked in by the big un. It's a mighty good test of eyes if you kin see that."
"Eh--" began Guy.
But "Grrrrrrrrr" from Sam stopped him in time. Again Caleb's eyes wandered afar. Then he stepped out of the teepee and Yan heard him mutter, "Consarn that whelp, he makes me laugh spite o' myself." He went off a little way into the woods and presently called "Yan! Guy! Come here." All three ran out. "Talking about eyes, what's that?" An opening in the foliage gave a glimpse of the distant Burns's clover field. "Looks like a small Bear."
"Woodchuck! That's our Woodchuck! That's the ole sinner that throwed Paw off'n the mower. Where's my bone-arrer?" and Guy went for his weapons.
The boys ran for the fence of the clover field, going more cautiously as they came near. Still the old Woodchuck heard something and sat up erect on his haunches. He was a monster, and out on the smooth clover field he did look like a very small Bear. His chestnut breast was curiously relieved by his unusually gray back and head.
"Paw says it's his sins as turned his head gray. He's a hoary headed sinner, an' he ain't repented o' none o' them so far, but _I'm_ after him now."
"Hold on! Start even!" said Sam, seeing that Guy was prepared to shoot.
So all drew together, standing in a row like an old picture of the battle of Crecy. The arrows scattered about the Woodchuck. Most went much too far, none went near because he was closer than they had supposed, but he scuttled away into his hole, there, no doubt, to plan a new trap for the man with the mower.
VII
Campercraft
"How'd you sleep, Sam?"
"Didn't sleep a durn bit."
"Neither did I. I was shivering all night. I got up an' put the spare blanket on, but it didn't do any good."
"Wonder if there was a chills-and-fever fog or something?"
"How'd you find it, Sappy?"
"All right."
"Didn't smell any fog?"
"Nope."
The next night it was even worse. Guy slept placidly, if noisily, but Sam and Yan tumbled about and shivered for hours. In the morning at dawn Sam sat up.
"Well, I tell you this is no joke. Fun's fun, but if I am going to have the shivers every night I'm going home while I'm able."
Yan said nothing. He was very glum. He felt much as Sam did, but was less ready to give up the outing.
Their blues were nearly dispelled when the warm sun came up, but still they dreaded the coming night.
"Wonder what it is," said Little Beaver.
"'Pears to me powerful like chills and fever and then again it don't. Maybe we drink too much swamp water. I believe we're p'isoned with Guy's cooking."
"More like getting scurvy from too much meat. Let's ask Caleb."
Caleb came around that afternoon or they would have gone after him. He heard Yan's story in silence, then, "Have ye sunned your blankets sense ye came?"
"No."
Caleb went into the teepee, felt the blankets, then grunted: "H-m! Jest so. They're nigh soppin'. You turn in night after night an' sweat an' sweat in them blankets an' wonder why they're damp. Hain't you seen your ma air the blankets every day at home? Every Injun squaw knows that much, an' every other day at least she gives the blankets a sun roast for three hours in the middle of the day, or, failing that, dries them at the fire. Dry out your blankets and you won't have no more chills."
The boys set about it at once, and that night they experienced again the sweet, warm sleep of healthy youth.
There was another lesson they had to learn in campercraft. The Mosquitoes were always more or less of a plague. At night they forced the boys into the teepee, but they soon learned to smudge the insects with a wad of green grass on the hot fire. This they would throw on at sundown, then go outside, closing the teepee tight and eat supper around the cooking fire. After that was over they would cautiously open the teepee to find the grass all gone and the fire low, a dense cloud of smoke still in the upper part, but below it clear air. They would then brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on their clothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquito was left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent was enough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thus they could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yet another destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottle flies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid masses of yellowish eggs on anything that smelled like meat or corruption. They buzzed about the table and got into the dishes; their dead, drowned and mangled bodies were polluting all the food, till Caleb remarked during one of his ever-increasing visits: "It's your own fault. Look at all the filth ye leave scattered about."
There was no blinking the fact; for fifty feet around the teepee the ground was strewn with scraps of paper, tins and food. To one side was a mass of potato peelings, bones, fish-scales and filth, and everywhere were the buzzing flies, to be plagues all day, till at sundown the Mosquitoes relieved them and took the night shift of the office of torment.
"I want to learn, especially if it's Injun," said Little Beaver. "What had we best do?"
"Wall, first ye could move camp; second, ye could clean this."
As there was no other available camp ground they had no choice, and Yan said with energy: "Boys, we got to clean this and keep it clean, too. We'll dig a hole for everything that won't burn."
So Yan seized the spade and began to dig in the bushes not far from the teepee. Sam and Guy were gradually drawn in. They began gathering all the rubbish and threw it into the hole. As they tumbled in bones, tins and scraps of bread Yan said: "I just hate to see that bread go in. It doesn't seem right when there's so many living things would be glad to get it."
At this, Caleb, who was sitting on a log placidly smoking, said:
"Now, if ye want to be real Injun, ye gather all the eatables ye don't want--meat, bread and anything, an' every day put it on some high place. Most generally the Injuns has a rock--they call it _Wakan_; that means sacred medicine--an' there they leave scraps of food to please the good spirits. Av coorse it's the birds and Squirrels gets it all; but the Injun is content as long as it's gone, an' if ye argy with them that 'tain't the spirits gets it, but the birds, they say: 'That doesn't matter. The birds couldn't get it if the spirits didn't want them to have it,' or maybe the birds took it to carry to the spirits!"
Then the Grand Council went out in a body to seek the _Wakan Rock_. They found a good one in the open part of the woods, and it became a daily duty of one to carry the remnants of food to the rock. They were probably less acceptable to the wood creatures than they would have been half a year later, but they soon found that there were many birds glad to eat at the _Wakan_; and moreover, that before long there was a trail from the brook, only twenty-five yards away, that told of four-foots also enjoying the bounty of the good spirits.
Within three days of this the plague of Bluebottles was over, and the boys realized that, judging by its effects, the keeping of a dirty camp is a crime.
One other thing old Caleb insisted on: "Yan," said he, "you didn't ought to drink that creek water now; it ain't hardly runnin'. The sun hez it het up, an' it's gettin' too crawly to be healthy."
"Well, what are we going to do?" said Sam, though he might as well have addressed the brook itself.
"What can we do, Mr. Clark?"
"Dig a well!"
"Phew! We're out here for fun!" was Sam's reply.
"Dig an Injun well," Caleb said. "Half an hour will do it. Here, I'll show you."
He took the spade and, seeking a dry spot, about twenty feet from the upper end of the pond he dug a hole some two feet square. By the time he was down three feet the water was oozing in fast. He got it down about four feet and then had to stop, on account of inflow. He took a bucket and bailed the muddy stuff out right to the bottom, and let it fill up to be again bailed out. After three bailings the water came in cold, sweet, and pure as crystal.
"There," said he, "that water is from your pond, but it is filtered through twenty feet of earth and sand. That's the way to get cool, pure water out of the dirtiest of swamps. That's an Injun well."
VIII
The Indian Drum
"Oh, that hair of horse and skin of sheep should Have such power to move the souls of men."
"If you were real Injun you'd make a drum of that," said Caleb to Yan, as they came to a Basswood blown over by a recent storm and now showing its weakness, for it was quite hollow--a mere shell.
"How do they do it? I want to know how."
"Get me the axe."
Yan ran for the axe. Caleb cut out a straight unbroken section about two feet long. This they carried to camp.
"Coorse ye know," said Caleb, "ye can't have a drum without skins for heads."
"What kind of skins?"
"Oh, Horse, Dog, Cow, Calf--'most any kind that's strong enough."
"I got a Calfskin in our barn, an' I know where there's another in the shed, but it's all chawed up with Rats. Them's mine. I killed them Calves. Paw give me the skins for killin' an' skinnin' them. Oh, you jest ought to see me kill a Calf--"
Guy was going off into one of his autopanegyrics when Sam who was now being rubbed on a sore place, gave a "Whoop!" and grabbed the tow-tuft with a jerk that sent the Third War Chief sprawling and ended the panegyric in the usual volley of "you-let-me-'lones."
"Oh, quit, Sam," objected Little Beaver. "You can't stop a Dog barking. It's his nature." Then to Guy: "Never mind, Guy; you are not hurt. I'll bet you can beat him hunting Deer, and you can see twice as far as he can."
"Yes, I kin; that's what makes him so mad. I'll bet I kin see three times as far--maybe five times," was the answer in injured tones.
"Go on now, Guy, and get the skins--that is, if you want a drum for the war dance. You're the only one in the crowd that's man enough to make the raise of a hide," and fired by this flattery, Guy sped away.
Meanwhile Caleb worked on the hollow log. He trimmed off the bark, then with the hatchet he cleared out all the punk and splinters inside. He made a fire on the ground in the middle of the drum-log as it stood on end, and watching carefully, he lifted it off from time to time and chopped away all the charred parts, smoothing and trimming till he had the log down thin and smooth within and without. They heard Guy shouting soon after he left. They thought him near at hand, but he did not come. Trimming the drum-log took a couple of hours, and still Guy did not return. The remark from Caleb, "'Bout ready for the skins now!" called from Sam the explanation, "Guess Old Man Burns snapped him up and put him to weeding the garden. Probably that was him we heard gettin' licked."
"Old Man Burns" was a poor and shiftless character, a thin, stoop-shouldered man. He was only thirty-five years of age, but, being married, that was enough to secure for him the title "Old Man." In Sanger, if Tom Nolan was a bachelor at eighty years of age he would still be Tom Nolan, "wan of the bhoys," but if he married at twenty he at once became "Old Man Nolan."
Mrs. Burns had produced the usual string of tow-tops, but several had died, the charitable neighbours said of starvation, leaving Guy, the eldest, his mother's darling, then a gap and four little girls, four, three, two and one years of age. She was a fat, fair, easy-going person, with a general sense of antagonism to her husband, who was, of course, the natural enemy of the children. Jim Burns cherished the ideal of bringing "that boy" up right--that is, getting all the work he could out of him--and Guy clung to his own ideal of doing as little work as possible. In this clash of ideals Guy's mother was his firm, though more or less secret, ally. He was without fault in her eyes: all that he did was right. His freckled visage and pudgy face were types of noble beauty, standards of comeliness and human excellence; his ways were ways of pleasantness and all his paths were peace; Margat Burns was sure of it.
Burns had a good deal of natural affection, but he was erratic; sometimes he would flog Guy mercilessly for nothing, and again laugh at some serious misdeed, so that the boy never knew just what to expect, and kept on the safe side by avoiding his "Paw" as much as possible. His visits to the camp had been thoroughly disapproved, partly because it was on Old Man Raften's land and partly because it enabled Guy to dodge the chores. Burns had been quite violent about it once or twice, but Mrs. Burns had the great advantage of persistence, and like the steady strain of the skilful angler on the slender line, it wins in the end against the erratic violence of the strongest trout. She had managed then that Guy should join the Injun camp, and gloried in his outrageously exaggerated accounts of how he could lick them all at anything, "though they wuz so much older'n bigger'n he wuz."
But on this day he was fallen in hard luck. His father saw him coming, met him with a "gad" and lashed him furiously. Knowing perfectly well that the flogging would not stop till the proper effect was produced, and that was to be gauged by the racket, Guy yelled his loudest. This was the uproar the boys had heard.
"Now, ye idle young scut! I'll larn ye to go round leaving bars down. You go an' tend to your work." So instead of hiking back gloriously laden with Calfskins, Guy was sent to ignominious and un-Injun toil in the garden.
Soon he heard his mother: "Guysie, Guysie." He dropped his hoe and walked to the kitchen.
"Where you goin'?" roared his father from afar. "Go back and mind your work."
"Maw wants me. She called me."
"You mind your work. Don't you dar' on your life to go thayer."
But Guy took no notice and walked on to his mother. He knew that at this post-thrashing stage of wrath his father was mouthy and harmless, and soon he was happy eating a huge piece of bread and jam.
"Poor dear, you must be hungry, an' your Paw was so mean to you. There, now, don't cry," for Guy began to weep again at the recollection of his wrongs. Then she whispered confidentially: "Paw's going to Downey's this afternoon, an' you can slip away as soon as he's gone, an' if you work well before that he won't be so awful mad after you come back. But be sure you don't let down the bars, coz if the pig was to get in Raften's woods dear knows what."
This was the reason of Guy's delay. He did not return to camp with the skins till late that day. As soon as he was gone, his foolish, doting mother, already crushed with the burden of the house, left everything and hoed two or three extra rows of cabbages, so "Paw" should find a great showing of work when he came back.
The Calfskins were hard as tin and, of course, had the hair on.
Caleb remarked, "It'll take two or three days to get them right," and buried them in a marshy, muddy pool in the full sunlight. "The warmer the better."
Three days later he took them out. Instead of being thin, hard, yellow, semi-transparent, they now were much thicker, densely white, and soft as silk. The hair was easily scraped off and the two pieces were pronounced all right for drumheads.
Caleb washed them thoroughly in warm water, with soap to clear off the grease, scraping them on both sides with a blunt knife; then he straightened the outer edge of the largest, and cut a thin strip round and round it till he had some sixty feet of rawhide line, about three-quarters of an inch wide. This he twisted, rolled and stretched until it was nearly round, then he cut from the remainder a circular piece thirty inches across, and a second from the "unchawed" part of the other skin. He laid these one on the other, and with the sharp point of a knife he made a row of holes in both, one inch from the edge and two inches apart. Then he set one skin on the ground, the drum-log on that and the other skin on the top, and bound them together with the long lace, running it from hole No. 1 on the top to No. 2 on the bottom, then to No. 3 on the top, and No. 4 on the bottom, and so on twice around, till every hole had a lace through it and the crossing laces made a diamond pattern all around. At first this was done loosely, but tightened up when once around, and finally both the drum-heads were drawn tense. To the surprise of all, Guy promptly took possession of the finished drum. "Them's my Calfskins," which, of course, was true.
And Caleb said, with a twinkle in his eye, "The wood _seems_ to go with the skins."
A drumstick of wood, with a piece of sacking lashed on to soften it, was made, and Guy was disgusted to find how little sound the drum gave out.
"'Bout like pounding a fur cap with a lamb's tail," Sam thought.
"You hang that up in the shade to dry and you'll find a change," said the Trapper.
It was quite curious to note the effect of the drying as the hours went by. The drum seemed to be wracking and straining itself in the agony of effort, and slight noises came from it at times. When perfectly dry the semi-transparency of the rawhide came back, and the sound now was one to thrill the Red-man's heart.
Caleb taught them a little Indian war chant, and they danced round to it as he drummed and sang, till their savage instincts seemed to revive. But above all it worked on Yan. As he pranced around in step his whole nature seemed to respond; he felt himself a part of that dance. It was in himself; it thrilled him through and through and sent his blood exulting. He would gladly have given up all the White-man's "glorious gains" to live with the feeling called up by that Indian drum.
IX
The Cat And The Skunk
Sam was away on a "massacree" to get some bread. Guy had been trapped by his natural enemy and was serving a term of hard labour in the garden; so Yan was alone in camp. He went around the various mud albums, but discovered nothing new, except the fact that tracks were getting more numerous. There were small Skunk and Mink tracks with the large ones now. As he came by the brush fence at the end of the blazed trail he saw a dainty little Yellow Warbler feeding a great lubberly young Cow-bird that, evidently, it had brought up. He had often heard that the Cow-bird habitually "plays Cuckoo" and leaves its egg in the nest of another bird, but this was the first time he had actually seen anything of it with his own eyes. As he watched the awkward mud-coloured Cow-bird flutter its ungrown wings and beg help from the brilliant little Warbler, less than half its size, he wondered whether the fond mother really was fooled into thinking it her own young, or whether she did it simply out of compassion for the foundling. He now turned down creek to the lower mud album, and was puzzled by a new track like this.
[Illustration: Track of small mud turtle]
He sketched it, but before the drawing was done it dawned on him that this must be the track of a young Mud-turtle. He also saw a lot of very familiar tracks, not a few being those of the common Cat, and he wondered why they should be about so much and yet so rarely seen. Of course the animals were chiefly nocturnal, but the boys were partly so, and always on the ground now, so that explanation was not satisfactory. He lay down on his breast at the edge of the brook, which had here cut in a channel with steep clay walls six feet high and twenty feet apart. The stream was very small now--a mere thread of water zigzagging over the level muddy floor of the "cañon," as Yan loved to call it. A broad, muddy margin at each side of the water made a fine place of record for the travelling Four-foots, and tracks new and old were there in abundance.
The herbage on the bank was very rank and full of noisy Grasshoppers and Crickets. Great masses of orange Jewelweed on one side were variegated with some wonderful Cardinal flowers. Yan viewed all this with placid content. He knew their names now, and thus they were transferred from the list of tantalizing mysteries to that of engaging and wonderful friends. As he lay there on his breast his thoughts wandered back to the days when he did not know the names of any flowers or birds--when all was strange and he alone in his hunger to know them, and Bonnerton came back to him with new, strange force of reminder. His father and mother, his brother and schoolmates were there. It seemed like a bygone existence, though only two months ago. He had written his mother to tell of his arrival, and once since to say that he was well. He had received a kind letter from his mother, with a scripture text or two, and a postscript from his father with some sound advice and more scripture texts. Since then he had not written. He could not comprehend how he could so completely drift away, and yet clearly it was because he had found here in Sanger the well for which he had thirsted.
As he lay there thinking, a slight movement nearer the creek caught his eye. A large Basswood had been blown down. Like most of its kind, it was hollow. Its trunk was buried in the tangle of rank summer growth, but a branch had been broken off and left a hole in the main stem. In the black cavern of the hole there appeared a head with shining green eyes, then out there glided onto the log a common gray Cat. She sat there in the sunshine, licked her paws, dressed her fur generally, stretched her claws and legs after the manner of her kind, walked to the end of the log, then down the easy slope to the bottom of the cañon. Here she took a drink, daintily shook the water from her paws, and set the hair just right with a stroke. Then to Yan's amusement she examined all the tracks much as he had done, though it seemed clear that her nose, not her eyes, was judge. She walked down stream, leaving some very fine impressions that Yan mentally resolved to have in his note-book, very soon suddenly stopped, looked upward and around, a living picture of elegance, sleekness and grace, with eyes of green fire then deliberately leaped from the creek bed to the tangle of the bank and disappeared.
This seemed a very commonplace happening, but the fact of a house Cat taking to the woods lent her unusual interest, and Yan felt much of the thrill that a truly wild animal would have given him, and had gone far enough in art to find exquisite pleasure in the series of pictures the Cat had presented to his eyes.
He lay there for some minutes expecting her to reappear; then far up the creek he heard slight rattling of the gravel. He turned and saw, not the Cat, but a very different and somewhat larger animal. Low, thick-set, jet black, with white marks and an immense bushy tail--Yan recognized the Skunk at once, although he had never before met a wild one in daylight. It came at a deliberate waddle, nosing this way and that. It rounded the bend and was nearly opposite Yan, when three little Skunks of this year's brood came toddling after the mother.
The old one examined the tracks much as the Cat had done, and Yan got a singular sense of brotherhood in seeing the wild things at his own study.
Then the old Skunk came to the fresh tracks of the Cat and paused so long to smell them that the three young ones came up and joined in. One of the young ones went to the bank where the Cat came down. As it blew its little nose over the fresh scent, the old Skunk waddled to the place, became quite interested, then climbed the bank. The little ones followed in a disjointed procession, varied by one of them tumbling backward from the steep trail.
The old Skunk reached the top of the bank, then mounted the log and followed unerringly the Cat's back trail to the hole in the trunk. Down this she peered a minute, then, sniffing, walked in, till nothing could be seen but her tail. Now Yan heard loud, shrill mewing from the log, "_Mew, mew, m-e-u-w, m-e-e-u-w,"_ and the old Skunk came backing out, holding a small gray Kitten.
The little thing mewed and spit energetically, holding on to the inside of the log. But the old Skunk was too strong--she dragged it out. Then holding it down with both paws, she got a good firm grip of its neck and turned to carry it down to the bed of the brook. The Kitten struggled vigorously, and at last got its claws into the Skunk's eye and gave such a wrench that the ill-smelling villain loosened its hold a little and so gave the Kitten another chance to squeal, which it did with a will, putting all its strength into a succession of heartrending _mee-ow--mee-ows._ Yan's heart was touched. He was about to dash to the rescue when there was a scrambling in the far grass, a rush of gray, and the Cat--the old mother Cat was on the scene, a picture of demon rage, eyes ablaze, fur erect, ears back. With the spring of a Deer and the courage of a Lion she made for the black murderer. Eye could not follow the flashings of her paws. The Skunk recoiled and stared stupidly, but not long; nothing was "long" about it. Her every superb muscle was tingling with force and mad with hate as the mother Cat closed like a swooping Falcon. The Skunk had no time to aim that dreadful gun, and in the excitement fired a volley of the deadly musky spray backward, drenching her own young as they huddled in the trail.
[Illustration: "The Cat and the Skunk"]
Tooth and claw and deadly grip--the old Cat raged and tore, the black fur flew in every direction, and the Skunk for once lost her head and fired random shots of choking spray that drenched herself as well as the Cat. The Skunk's head and neck were terribly torn. The air was suffocating with the poisonous musk. The Skunk was desperately wounded and threw herself backward into the water. Blinded and choking, though scarcely bleeding, the old Cat would have followed even there, but the Kitten, wedged under the log, mewed piteously and stayed the mother's fury. She dragged it out unharmed but drenched with musk and carried it quickly to the den in the hollow log, then came out again and stood erect, blinking her blazing eyes--for they were burning with the spray--lashing her tail, the image of a Tigress eager to fight either part or all the world for the little ones she nursed. But the old Skunk had had more than enough. She scrambled off down the cañon. Her three young ones had tumbled over each other to get out of the way when they got that first accidental charge of their mother's battery. She waddled away, leaving a trail of blood and smell, and they waddled after, leaving an odour just as strong.
[Illustration: "The old Cat raged and tore"]
Yan was thrilled by the desperate fight of the heroic old Cat. Her whole race went up higher in his esteem that day; and the fact that the house Cat really could take to the woods and there maintain herself by hunting was all that was needed to give her a place in his list of animal heroes.
Pussy walked uneasily up and down the log, from the hole where the Kittens were to the end overlooking the cañon. She blinked very hard and was evidently suffering severely, but Yan knew quite well that there was no animal on earth big enough or strong enough to frighten that Cat from her post at the door of her home. There is no courage more indomitable than that of a mother Cat who is guarding her young.
At length all danger of attack seemed over, and Pussy, shaking her paws and wiping her eyes, glided into her hole. Oh, what a shock it must have been to the poor Kittens, though partly prepared by their brother's unsavoury coming back. There was the mother, whose return had always been heralded by a delicious odour of fresh Mouse or bird, interwoven with a loving and friendly odour of Cat, that was in itself a promise of happiness. Scent is the main thing in Cat life, and now the hole was darkened by a creature that was rank with every nasal guarantee of deadly enmity. Little wonder that they all fled puffing and spitting to the dark corners. It was a hard case; all the little stomachs were upset for a long time. They could do nothing but make the best of it and get used to it. The den never smelt any better while they were there, and even after they grew up and lived elsewhere many storms passed overhead before the last of the Skunk smell left them.
X
THE ADVENTURES OF A SQUIRREL FAMILY
"I'll bet I kin make a Woodpecker come out of that hole," said Sapwood, one day as the three Red-men proceeded, bow in hand, through a far corner of Burns's Bush. He pointed to a hole in the top of a tall dead stub, then going near he struck the stub a couple of heavy blows with a pole. To the surprise of all there flew out, not a Woodpecker, but a Flying Squirrel. It scrambled to the top of the stub, looked this way and that, then spread its legs, wings and tail and sailed downward, to rise slightly at the end of its flight against a tree some twenty feet away. Yan bounded to catch it. His fingers clutched on its furry back, but he got such a cut from its sharp teeth that he was glad to let it go. It scrambled up the far side of the trunk and soon was lost in the branches.
Guy was quite satisfied that he had carried out his promise of bringing a Woodpecker out of the hole, "For ain't a Flying Squirrel a kind of Woodpecker?" he argued. He was, in consequence, very "cocky" the rest of the day, proposing to produce a Squirrel whenever they came to a stub with a hole in it, and at length, after many failures, had the satisfaction of driving a belated Woodpecker out of its nest.
The plan was evidently a good one for discovering living creatures. Yan promptly adopted it, and picking up a big stick as they drew near another stub with holes, he gave three or four heavy thumps. A Red Squirrel scrambled out of a lower hole and hid in an upper one; another sharp blow made it pop out and jump to the top of the stub, but eventually back into the lower hole.
The boys became much excited. They hammered the stub now without making the Squirrel reappear.
"Let's cut it down," said Little Beaver.
"Show you a better trick than that," replied the Woodpecker. He looked about and got a pole some twenty feet long. This he placed against a rough place high up on the stub and gave it a violent push, watching carefully the head of the stub. Yes! It swayed just a little. Sam repeated the push, careful to keep time with the stub and push always just as it began to swing away from him. The other boys took hold of the pole and all pushed together, as Sam called, "Now--now--now--"
A single push of 300 or 400 pounds would scarcely have moved the stub, but these little fifty-pound pushes at just the right time made it give more and more, and after three or four minutes the roots, that had begun to crack, gave way with a craunching sound, and down crashed the great stub. Its hollow top struck across a fallen log and burst open in a shower of dust, splinters and rotten wood. The boys rushed to the spot to catch the Squirrel, if possible. It did not scramble out as they expected it would, even when they turned over the fragments. They found the front of the stub with the old Woodpecker hole in it, and under that was a mass of finely shredded cedar bark, evidently a nest. Yan eagerly turned it over, and there lay the Red Squirrel, quite still and unharmed apparently, but at the end of her nose was a single drop of blood. Close beside her were five little Squirrels, evidently a very late brood, for they were naked, blind and helpless. One of them had at its nose a drop of blood and it lay as still as the mother. At first the hunters thought the old one was playing 'Possum, but the stiffness of death soon set in.
Now the boys felt very guilty and sorry. By thoughtlessly giving way to their hunting instincts they had killed a harmless mother Squirrel in the act of protecting her young, and the surviving little ones had no prospect but starvation.
Yan had been the most active in the chase, and now was far more conscience-stricken than either of the others.
"What are we going to do with them?" asked the Woodpecker. "They are too young to be raised for pets."
"Better drown them and be done with them," suggested Sappy, recalling the last honours of several broods of Kittens at home.
"I wish we could find another Squirrel's nest to put them into," said Little Beaver remorsefully, and then as he looked at the four squirming, helpless things in his hand the tears of repentance filled his eyes. "We might as well kill them and end their misery. We can't find another Squirrel's nest so late as this." But after a little silence he added, "I know some one who will put them out of pain. She may as well have them. She'd get them anyway, and that's the old gray wild Cat. Let's put them in her nest when she's away."
This seemed a reasonable, simple and merciful way of getting rid of the orphans. So the boys made for the "cañon" part of the brook. At one time of the afternoon the sun shone so as to show plainly all that was in the hole. The boys went very quietly to Yan's lookout bank, and seeing that only the Kittens were there, Yan crept across and dropped the young Squirrels into the nest, then went back to his friends to watch, like Miriam, the fate of the foundlings.
They had a full hour to wait for the old Cat, and as they were very still all that time they were rewarded with a sight of many pretty wild things.
A Humming-bird "boomed" into view and hung in a misty globe of wings before one Jewel-flower after another.
"Say, Beaver, you said Humming-birds was something or other awful beautiful," said Woodpecker, pointing to the dull grayish-green bird before them.
"And I say so yet. Look at that," as, with a turn in the air, the hanging Hummer changed its jet-black throat to flame and scarlet that silenced the critic.
After the Humming-bird went away a Field-mouse was seen for a moment dodging about in the grass, and shortly afterward a Shrew-mole, not so big as the Mouse, was seen in hot pursuit on its trail.
Later a short-legged brown animal, as big as a Rabbit, came nosing up the dry but shady bed of the brook, and as it went beneath them Yan recognized by its little Beaver-like head and scaly oar-shaped tail that it was a Muskrat, apparently seeking for water.
There was plenty in the swimming-pond yet, and the boys realized that this had become a gathering place for those wild things that were "drowned out by the drought," as Sam put it.
The Muskrat had not gone more than twenty minutes before another deep-brown animal appeared. "Another Muskrat; must be a meeting," whispered the Woodpecker. But this one, coming close, proved a very different creature. As long as a Cat, but lower, with broad, flat head and white chin and throat, short legs, in shape a huge Weasel, there was no mistaking it; this was a Mink, the deadly enemy of the Muskrat, and now on the track of its prey. It rapidly turned the corner, nosing the trail like a Hound. If it overtook the Muskrat before it got to the pond there would be a tragedy. If the Muskrat reached the deep water it might possibly escape. But just as sure as the pond became a gathering place for Muskrats it would also become a gathering place for Mink.
Not five minutes had gone since the Mink went by before a silent gray form flashed upon the log opposite. Oh, how sleek and elegant it looked! What perfection of grace she seemed after the waddling, hunchy Muskrat and the quick but lumbering Mink. There is nothing more supple and elegant than a fine Cat, and men of science the world over have taken the Cat as the standard of perfection in animal make-up. Pussy glanced about for danger. She had brought no bird or Mouse, for the Kittens were yet too young for such training. The boys watched her with intensest interest. She glided along the log to the hole--the Skunk-smelling hole--uttered her low "_purrow, purrow_," that always sets the hungry Kittens agog, and was curling in around them, when she discovered the pink Squirrel-babies among her own. She stopped licking the nearest Kitten, stared at a young Squirrel, and smelled it. Yan wondered what help that could be when everything smelled of Skunk. But it did seem to decide her, for she licked it a moment, then lying down she gathered them all in her four-legged embrace, turned her chin up in the air and Sappy announced gleefully that "The little Squirrels were feeding with the little Cats."
The boys waited a while longer, then having made sure that the little Squirrels had been lovingly adopted by their natural enemy, they went quietly back to camp. Now they found a daily pleasure in watching the mixed family.
And here it may be as well to give the rest of the story. The old gray Cat faithfully and lovingly nursed those foundlings. They seemed to prosper, and Yan, recalling that he had heard of a Cat actually raising a brood of Rabbits, looked forward to the day when Kittens and Squirrelets should romp together in the sun. After a week Sappy maintained that only one Squirrel appeared at the breakfast table, and in ten days none. Yan stole over to the log and learned the truth. All four were dead in the bottom of the nest. There was nothing to tell why. The old Cat had done her best--had been all love and tenderness, but evidently had not been able to carry out her motherly intentions.
[Illustration: Four tiny headstones]
XI
HOW TO SEE THE WOODFOLK
The days went merrily now, beginning each morning with a hunting of the Woodchuck. The boys were on terms of friendship with the woods that contrasted strongly with the feelings of that first night.
This was the thought in Sam's mind when he one day remarked, "Say, Yan, do you remember the night I slep' with the axe an' you with the hatchet?"
The Indians had learned to meet and conquer all the petty annoyances of camp life, and so forgot them. Their daily routine was simplified. Their acquaintance with woodfolk and wood-ways had grown so fast that now they were truly at home. The ringing "_Kow_--_Kow_--_Kow_" in the tree-tops was no longer a mere wandering voice, but the summer song of the Black-billed Cuckoo. The loud, rattling, birdy whistle in the low trees during dull weather Yan had traced to the Tree-frog.
The long-drawn "_Pee--re-e-e-e"_ of hot afternoons was the call of the Wood-peewee, and a vast number of mysterious squeaks and warbles had been traced home to the ever-bright and mischievous Blue Jay.
The nesting season was now over, as well as the song season; the birds, therefore, were less to be seen, but the drying of the streams had concentrated much life in the swimming-pond. The fence had been arranged so that the cattle could reach one end of it to drink, but the lower parts were safe from their clumsy feet, and wild life of many kinds were there in abundance.
The Muskrats were to be seen every evening in the calm pool, and fish in great numbers were in the deeper parts. Though they were small, the boys found them so numerous and so ready to bite that fishing was great sport, and more than one good meal they had from that pond. There were things of interest discovered daily. In a neighbour's field Sam had found another Woodchuck with a "price on his head." Rabbits began to come about the camp at night, especially when the moon was bright, and frequently of late they had heard a querulous, yelping bark that Caleb said was made by a Fox "probably that old rascal that lives in Callahan's woods."
The gray Cat in the log was always interesting. The boys went very regularly to watch from a distance, but for good reasons did not go near. First, they did not wish to scare her; second, they knew that if they went too close she would not hesitate to attack them.
One of the important lessons that Yan learned was this. In the woods _the silent watcher sees the most_. The great difficulty in watching was how to pass the time, and the solution was to sit and _sketch._ Reading would have done had books been at hand, but not so well as sketching, because then the eyes are fixed on the book instead of the woods, and the turning of the white pages is apt to alarm the shy woodfolk.
Thus Yan put in many hours making drawings of things about the edge of the pond.
[Illustration: Kingfisher]
As he sat one day in stillness a Minnow leaped from the water and caught a Fly. Almost immediately a Kingfisher that had been shooting past stopped in air, hovered, and darting downward, came up with a Minnow in his beak, flew to a branch to swallow its prey, but no sooner got there when a Chicken-hawk flashed out of a thick tree, struck the Kingfisher with both feet and bore him downward to the bank--in a moment would have killed him, but a long, brown creature rushed from a hole in the bank and sprang on the struggling pair, to change the scene in a twinkling. The three stragglers separated, the Hawk to the left, the Kingfisher to the right, the Minnow flopped back into the pool, and the Mink was left on the shore with a mouthful of feathers and looking very foolish. As it stood shaking the down from its nose another animal came gliding down through the shrubbery to the shore--the old gray Cat. The Mink wrinkled up his nose, showed two rows of sharp teeth and snarled in a furious manner, but backed off under a lot of roots. The Cat laid down her ears; the fur on her back and tail stood up; she crouched a little, her eyes blazing and the end of her tail twitching, and she answered the snarling of the Mink with a low growl. The Mink was evidently threatening "sudden death" to the Cat, and Pussy evidently was not much impressed. The Mink retreated farther under the roots till nothing but the green glowing of his eyes was to be seen, and the Cat, coming forward, walked calmly by his hiding-place and went about her business. The snarling under the root died away, and as soon as his enemy was gone the Mink dived into the water and was lost to view.
These two animals had a second meeting, as Yan had the luck to witness from his watching-place. He had heard the "plop" of a deft plunge, and looked in time only to see the spreading rings near the shore. Then the water was ruffled far up in the pond. A brown spot showed and was gone. A second appeared, to vanish as the first had done. Later, a Muskrat crawled out on the shore, waddled along for twenty feet, then, plunging in, swam below, came up at the other bank, and crawled under a lot of overhanging roots. A minute later the Mink appeared, his hair all plastered close till he looked like a four-legged Snake. He landed where the Muskrat had come out, followed the trail so that it was lost, then galloped up and down the shore, plunged in, swam across, and beat about the other shore. At last he struck the trail and followed. Under the root there were sounds of a struggle, the snarling of the mink, and in two or three minutes he appeared dragging out the body of the Muskrat. He sucked its blood and was eating the brains when again the gray Cat came prowling up the edge of the pond and, not ten feet off, stood face to face with the Mink, as she had done before.
The Water Weasel saw his enemy but made no attempt to escape from her. He stood with forepaws on his victim and snarling a warning and defiance to the Cat. Pussy, after glaring for a few seconds, leaped lightly to the high bank, passed above the Mink, then farther on leaped down, and resumed her journey up the shore.
Why should the Mink fear the Cat the first time, and the Cat the Mink the second? Yan believed that ordinarily the Cat could "lick," but that now the Mink had right on his side; he was defending his property, and the Cat, knowing that, avoided a quarrel; whereas the same Cat would have faced a thousand Mink in defense of her Kittens.
These two scenes did not happen the same day, but are told together because Yan always told them together afterward to show that the animals understand something of right and wrong.
But later Yan had another experience with the Muskrats. He and Sam were smoothing out the lower album for the night, when a long stream of water came briskly down the middle of the creek bed, which had been dry for more than a week.
"Hallo," said Woodpecker, "where's that from?"
"A leak in the dam," said Little Beaver, with fear in his voice.
The boys ran up to the dam and learned that the guess was right. The water had found an escape round the end of the dam, and a close examination showed that it had been made by a burrowing Muskrat.
It was no little job to get it tightly closed up. But the spade was handy, and a close-driven row of stakes with plenty of stiff clay packed behind not only stopped the leak but gave a guarantee that in future that corner at least would be safe.
When Caleb heard of the Muskrat mischief he said:
"Now ye know why the Beavers are always so dead sore on the Muskrats. They know the Rats are liable to spoil their dams any time, so they kill them whenever they get the chance."
Little Beaver rarely watched an hour without seeing something of interest in the swamp. The other warriors had not the patience to wait so long and they were not able to make a pastime of sketching.
Yan made several hiding-places where he found that living things were most likely to be seen. Just below the dam was a little pool where various Crawfish and thread-like Eels abounding proved very attractive to Kingfisher and Crow, while little Tip-ups or Teetering Snipe would wiggle their latter end on the level dam, or late in the day the never-failing Muskrat would crawl out on a flat stone and sit like a fur cap. The cañon part of the creek was another successful hiding-place, but the very best was at the upper end of the pond, for the simple reason that it gave a view of more different kinds of land. First the water with Muskrats and occasionally a Mink, next the little marsh, always there, but greatly increased now by the back-up of the water. Here one or two Field-mice and a pair of Sora Rails were at home. Close at hand was the thick woods, where Partridges and Black Squirrels were sometimes seen.
Yan was here one day sketching the trunk of a Hemlock to pass the watching time, but also because he had learned to love that old tree. He never sketched because he loved sketching; he did not; the motive always was love of the thing he was drawing.
A Black-and-white Creeper had crawled like a Lizard over all the trunks in sight. A Downy Woodpecker had digged a worm out of a log by labour that most birds would have thought ill-paid by a dozen such worms. A Chipmunk had come nearer and nearer till it had actually run over his foot and then scurried away chattering in dismay at its own rashness; finally, a preposterous little Cock Chickadee sang "_Spring soon_--_spring soon_," as though any one were interested in the gratuitous and unconvincing fib, when a brown, furry form hopped noiselessly from the green leaves by the pond, skipped over a narrow bay without wetting its feet, paused once or twice, then in the middle of the open glade it sat up in plain view--a Rabbit. It sat so long and so still that Yan first made a sketch that took three of four minutes, then got out his watch and timed it for three minutes longer before it moved in the least. Then it fed for some time, and Yan tried to make a list of the things it ate and the things it shunned, but could not do so with certainty.
A noisy Flicker came out and alighted close by on a dried branch. The Rabbit, or really a Northern Hare, "froze"--that is, became perfectly still for a moment--but the Flicker marks were easy to read and had long ago been learned as the uniform of a friend, so the Rabbit resumed his meal, and when the Flicker flew again he paid no heed. A Crow passed over, and yet another. "No; no danger from them." A Red-shouldered Hawk wailed in the woods; the Rabbit heard that and every other sound, but the Red-shoulder is not dangerous, and he knew it. A large Hawk with _red tail_ circled silently over the glade, and the Rabbit froze on the instant. That same red tail was the mark of a dreaded foe. How well Bunny had learned to know them all!
A bunch of clover tempted him to a full repast, after which he hopped into a tussock in the midst of the glade and there turned himself into a moss-bump, his legs swallowed up in his fur, and his ears laid over his back like a pair of empty gloves or a couple of rounded shingles; his nose-wabblings reduced in number, and he seemed to be sleeping in the last warm rays of the sun. Yan was very anxious to see whether his eyes were open or not; he had been told that Rabbits sleep with open eyes, but at this distance he could not be sure. He had no field-glass and Guy was not at hand, so the point remained in doubt.
The last sun-blots had gone from the trail and the pond was all shadowed by the trees on the western side. A Robin began its evening hymn on a tall tree, where it could see the red sun going down, and a Veery was trilling his _weary, weary, weary_ in the Elder thicket along the brook, when another, a larger animal, loomed up in the distant trail and glided silently toward Yan. Its head was low and he could not make out what it was. As it stood there for a few seconds Yan wet his finger in his mouth and held it up. A slight coolness on the side next the coming creature told Yan that the breeze was from it to him and would not betray him. It came on, seeming to grow larger, turned a little to one side, and then Yan saw plainly by the sharp nose and ears and the bushy tail that it was nothing less than a Fox, probably the one that often barked near camp at night.
It was trotting away at an angle, knowing nothing of the watching boy nor of the crouching Rabbit, when Yan, merely to get a better look at the cunning one, put the back of his hand to his mouth and by sucking made a slight Mouse-like squeak, sweetest music, potent spellbinder, to a hungry Fox, and he turned like a flash. For a moment he stood, head erect, full of poise and force in curb; a second squeak--he came slowly back toward the sound and in so doing passed between Yan and the Rabbit. He had crossed its old trail without feeling much interest, but now the breeze brought its _body scent_. Instantly the Fox gave up the Mouse hunt--no hunter goes after Mice when big game is at hand--and began an elaborate and beautiful stalk of the Rabbit--the Rabbit that he had not seen. But his nose was his best guide. He cautiously zigzagged up the wind, picking his steps with the greatest care, and pointing with his nose like a Pointer Dog. Each step was bringing him nearer to Bunny as it slept or seemed asleep in the tussock. Yan wondered whether he ought not to shout out and end the stalk before the Rabbit was caught, but as a naturalist he was eager to see the whole thing out and learn how the Fox would make the capture. The red-furred gentleman was now within fifteen feet of the tussock and still the gray one moved not. Now he was within twelve feet--and no move; ten feet--and Bunny seemed in tranquil sleep; eight feet--and now the Fox for the first time seemed to actually see his victim. Yan had hard work to keep from shouting a warning; six feet--and now the Fox was plainly preparing for a final spring.
"Is it right to let him?" and Yan's heart beat with excitement.
The Fox brought his feet well under him, tried the footing till it was perfect, gathered all his force, then with silent, vicious energy sprung straight for the sleeper. Sleeping? Oh, no! Not at all. Bunny was playing his own game. The moment the Fox leaped, he leaped with equal vigour the opposite way and out under his enemy, so Reynard landed on the empty bunch of grass. Again he sprang, but the Rabbit had rebounded like a ball in the other direction, and continued this bewildering succession of marvellous erratic hops. The Fox in vain tried to keep up, for these wonderful side jumps are the Rabbit's strength and the Fox's weakness; and Bunny went zigzag--hop--skip-- into the thicket and was gone before the Fox could get his heavier body under speed at all.
Had the Rabbit bounded out as soon as he saw the Fox coming he might have betrayed himself unnecessarily; had he gone straight away when the Fox leaped for him he might have been caught in three or four leaps, for the enemy was under full speed, but by biding his time he had courted no danger, and when it did come he had played the only possible offset, and "lives in the greenwood still."
The Fox had to seek his supper somewhere else, and Yan went to camp happy in having learned another of the secrets of the woods.
XII
Indian Signs And Getting Lost
"What do you mean when you say Indian signs, Mr. Clark?"
"Pretty near anything that shows there's Injuns round: a moccasin track, a smell of smoke, a twig bent, a village, one stone a-top of another or a white settlement scalped and burned--they all are Injun signs. They all mean something, and the Injuns read them an' make them, too, jest as you would writing."
"You remember the other day you told us three smokes meant you were coming back with scalps."
"Well, no; it don't har'ly mean that. It means 'Good news'--that is, with some tribes. Different tribes uses 'em different."
"Well, what does one smoke mean?"
"As a rule just simply '_Camp is here_'"
"And two smokes?"
"Two smokes means '_Trouble_'--may mean, _'I am lost.'_"
"I'll remember that; _double for trouble_."
"Three means good news. _There's luck in odd numbers_."
"And what is four?"
"Well, it ain't har'ly ever used. If I seen four smokes in camp I'd know _something big_ was on--maybe a Grand Council."
"Well, if you saw five smokes what would you think?"
"I'd think some blame fool was settin' the hull place a-blaze," Caleb replied with the sniff end of a laugh.
"Just now you said one stone on another was a sign. What does it mean?"
"Course I can't speak for all Injuns. Some has it for one thing an' some for another, but usually in the West two stones or 'Buffalo chips' settin' one on the other means 'This is the trail'; and a little stone at the left of the two would mean 'Here we turned off to the left'; and at the other side, 'Here we turned to the right.' Three stones settin' one on top of another means, 'This is sure enough the trail,' 'Special' or 'Particular' or 'Look out'; an' a pile of stones just throwed together means 'We camped here 'cause some one was sick.' They'd be the stones used for giving the sick one a steam bath."
"Well, what would they do if there were no stones?"
"Ye mean in the woods?"
"Yes, or smooth prairie."
"Well, I pretty near forget, it's so long ago, but le's see now," and Yan worried Caleb and Caleb threshed his memory till they got out a general scheme, or Indian code, though Caleb was careful to say that "some Injuns done it differently."
[Illustration: INDIAN SIGNS]
Yan must needs set about making a signal fire at once, and was disappointed to find that a hundred yards away the smoke could not be seen above the tree-tops, till Caleb showed him the difference between a clear fire and a smoke or smudge fire.
"Begin with a clear fire to get the heat, then smother it with green grass and rotten wood. There, now you see the difference," and a great crooked, angling pillar of smoke rolled upward as soon as the grass and punk began to sizzle in the glow of embers.
"I bet ye kin see that ten miles away if ye'r on a high place to look for it."
"I bet I could see it twenty miles," chirped in Guy.
"Mr. Clark, were you ever lost?" continued the tireless asker.
"Why, course I was, an' more than once. Every one that goes in the woods is bound to get lost once in awhile."
"What--do the Indians?"
"Of course! Why not? They're human, an' I tell you when you hear a man brag that he never was lost, I know he never was far from his mother's apron string. Every one is bound to get lost, but the real woodsman gets out all right; that's the difference."
"Well, what would you do if you got lost?"
"Depends on where. If it was a country that I didn't know, and I had friends in camp, after I'd tried my best I'd jest set right down and make two smoke fires. 'Course, if I was alone I'd try to make a bee line in the likeliest direction, an' this is easy to make if ye kin see the sun and stars, but stormy weather 'tain't possible. No man kin do it, an' if ye don't know the country ye have to follow some stream; but I'm sorry for ye if ever ye have to do that, for it's the worst walking on earth. It will surely bring ye out some place--that is, it will keep ye from walking in a circle--but ye can't make more than four or five miles a day on it."
[Illustration: "The Two Smokes"]
"Can't you get your direction from moss on the tree trunks?"
"_Naw!_ Jest try it an' see; moss on the north side of a tree and rock; biggest branches on the south of a trunk; top of a Hemlock pointing to east; the biggest rings of growth on the south side of a stump, an' so on. It fits a tree standin' out by itself in the open--the biggest ring is in the south, but it don't fit a tree on the south side of an opening; then the biggest rings is on the north. If ye have a compass in hand it's all kind o' half true--that is, just a little bit true; but it ain't true; it's on'y a big lie, when ye'r scared out o' your wits an' needin' to know. I never seen but one good compass plant, an' that was the prairie Golden Rod. Get a bunch of them in the open and the most of them point north, but under cover of taller truck they jest point every which way for Sunday.
"If ye find a beaten game trail, ye follow that an it'll bring ye to water--that is, if ye go the right way, an' that ye know by its gettin' stronger. If it's peterin' out, ye'r goin' in the wrong direction. A flock of Ducks or a Loon going over is sure to be pointing for water. Y're safe to follow.
"If ye have a Dog or a Horse with ye he kin bring ye home all right. Never knew them to fail but oncet, an' that was a fool Horse; there is sech oncet in awhile, though there's more fool Dogs.
"But come right down to it, the compass is the safest thing. The sun and stars is next, an' if ye know your friends will come ye'r best plan is to set right down and make two smoke fires, keep them a-going, holler every little while, and keep calm. Ye won't come to no harm unless ye'r a blame fool, an' such ought to stay to hum, where they'll be nursed."
XIII
Tanning Skins and Making Moccasins
Sam had made a find. A Calf had been killed and its skin hung limp on a beam in the barn. His father allowed him to carry this off, and now he appeared with a "fresh Buffalo hide to make a robe."
"I don't know how the Injuns dress their robes," he explained, "but Caleb does, and he'll tell you, and, of course, I'll pay no attention."
The old Trapper had nothing to do, and the only bright spots in his lonely life, since his own door was shut in his face, were visits to the camp. These had become daily, so it was taken as a matter of course when, within an hour after Sam's return, he "happened round."
"How do the Indians tan furs and robes?" Yan asked at once.
"Wall, different ways--"
But before he could say more Hawkeye reappeared and shouted:
"Say, boys, Paw's old Horse died!" and he grinned joyfully, merely because he was the bearer of news.
"Sappy, you grin so much your back teeth is gettin' sunburned," and the Head Chief eyed him sadly.
"Well, it's so, an' I'm going to skin out his tail for a scalp. I bet I'll be the Injunest one of the crowd."
"Why don't you skin the hull thing, an' I'll show you how to make lots of Injun things of the hide," Caleb added, as he lighted his pipe.
"Will you help me?
"It's same as skinnin a Calf. I'll show you where to get the sewing sinew after the hide's off."
So the whole camp went to Burns's field. Guy hung back and hid when he saw his father there drawing the dead Horse away with the plough team.
"Good-day, Jim," was Caleb's greeting, for they were good friends. "Struck hard luck with the Horse?"
"No! Not much. Didn't cost nothing; got him for boot in a swap. Glad he's dead, for he was foundered."
"We want his skin, if you don't."
"You're welcome to the hull thing."
"Well, just draw it over by the line fence we'll bury what's left when we're through."
"All right. You hain't seen that durn boy o' mine, have you?"
"Why, yes; I seen him not long ago," said Sam. "He was p'inting right for home then."
"H-m. Maybe I'll find him at the house."
"Maybe you will." Then Sam added under his breath, "I don't think."
So Burns left them, and a few minutes later Guy sneaked out of the woods to take a secondary part in the proceedings.
Caleb showed them how to split the skin along the under side of each leg and up the belly. It was slow work skinning, but not so unpleasant as Yan feared, since the animal was fresh.
Caleb did the most of the work; Sam and Yan helped. Guy assisted with reminiscences of his own Calf-skinning and with suggestions drawn from his vast experiences.
When the upper half of the skin was off, Caleb remarked: "Don't believe we can turn him over, and when the Injuns didn't have a Horse at hand to turn over the Buffalo they used to cut the skin in two down the line of the back. I guess we better do that. We've got all the rawhide we need, anyhow."
So they cut off the half they had skinned, took the tail and the mane for "scalps," and then Caleb sent Yan for the axe and a pail.
He cut out a lump of liver and the brains of the Horse. "That," said he, "is for tanning, an' here is where the Injun woman gits her sewing thread."
He made a deep cut alongside the back bone from the middle of the back to the loin, then forcing his fingers under a broad band of whitish fibrous tissue, he raised it up, working and cutting till it ran down to the hip bone and forward to the ribs. This sewing sinew was about four inches wide, very thin, and could easily be split again and again till it was like fine thread.
"There," he said, "is a hank o' thread. Keep that. It'll dry up, but can be split at any time, and soaking in warm water for twenty minutes makes it soft and ready for use. Usually, when she's sewing, the squaw keeps a thread soaking in her mouth to be ready. Now we've got a Horse skin and a Calfskin I guess we better set up a tan-yard."
"Well, how do you tan furs, Mr. Clark?"
"Good many different ways. Sometimes just scrape and scrape till I get all the grease and meat off the inside, then coat it with alum and salt and leave it rolled up for a couple of days till the alum has struck through and made the skin white at the roots of the hair, then when this is half dry pull and work it till it is all soft.
"But the Injuns don't have alum and salt, and they make a fine tan out of the liver and brains, like I'm going to do with this."
"Well, I want to do it the Indian way."
"All right, you take the brains and liver of your Calf."
"Why not some of the Horse brains and liver?"
"Oh, I dunno. They never do it that way that I've seen. Seems like it went best with its own brains."
"Now," remarked the philosophical Woodpecker, "I call that a wonderful provision of nature, always to put Calf brains and liver into a Calfskin, and just enough to tan it."
"First thing always is to clean your pelt, and while you do that I'll put the Horsehide in the mud to soak off the hair." He put it in the warm mud to soak there a couple of days, just as he had done the Calfskin for the drum-heads, then came to superintend the dressing of the Buffalo "robe."
Sam first went home for the Calf brains and liver, then he and Yan scraped the skin till they got out a vast quantity of grease, leaving the flesh side bluish-white and clammy, but not greasy to the touch. The liver of the Calf was boiled for an hour and then mashed up with the raw brains into a tanning "dope" or mash and spread on the flesh side of the hide, which was doubled, rolled up and put in a cool place for two days. It was then opened out, washed clean in the brook and hung till nearly dry. Then Caleb cut a hardwood stake to a sharp edge and showed Yan how to pull and work the hide over the edge till it was all soft and leathery.
The treatment of the Horsehide was the same, once the hair was removed, but the greater thickness needed a longer soaking in the "tan dope."
After two days the Trapper scraped it clean and worked it on the sharp-edged stake. It soon began to look like leather, except in one or two spots. On examining these he said:
"H-m, Tanning didn't strike right through every place. So he buttered it again with the mash and gave it a day more; then worked it as before over the angle of the pole till it was soft and fibrous.
"There," said he, "that's Injun tan leather. I have seen it done by soaking the hide for a few days in liquor made by boiling Hemlock or Balsam bark in water till it's like brown ink, but it ain't any better than that. Now it needs one thing more to keep it from hardening after being wet. It has to be smoked."
So he made a smoke fire by smothering a clear fire with rotten wood; then fastening the Horsehide into a cone with a few wooden pins, he hung it in the dense smoke for a couple of hours, first one side out, then the other till it was all of a rich smoky-tan colour and had the smell so well known to those who handle Indian leather.
"There it is; that's Injun tan, an' I hope you see that elbow grease is the main thing in tannin'."
"Now, will you show us how to make moccasins and war-shirts?" asked Little Beaver, with his usual enthusiasm.
"Well, the moccasins is easy, but I won't promise about the war-shirts. That's pretty much a case of following the pattern of your own coat, with the front in one piece, but cut down just far enough for your head to go through, instead of all the way, and fixed with tie-strings at the throat and fringes at the seams and at the bottom; it hain't easy to do. But any one kin larn to make moccasins. There is two styles of them--that is, two main styles. Every Tribe has its own make, and an Injun can tell what language another speaks as soon as he sees his footgear. The two best known are the Ojibwa, with soft sole--sole and upper all in one, an' a puckered instep--that's what Ojibwa means--'puckered moccasin.' The other style is the one most used in the Plains. You see, they have to wear a hard sole, 'cause the country is full of cactus and thorns as well as sharp stones."
"I want the Sioux style. We have copied their teepee and war bonnet--and the Sioux are the best Indians, anyway."
"Or the worst, according to what side you're on," was Caleb's reply. But he went on: "Sioux Injuns are Plains Injuns and wear a hard sole. Let's see, now. I'll cut you a pair."
"No, make them for _me_. It's my Horse," said Guy.
"No, you don't. Your Paw give that to me." Caleb's tone said plainly that Guy's laziness had made a bad impression, so he had to stand aside while Yan was measured. Caleb had saved a part of the hide untanned though thoroughly cleaned. This was soaked in warm water till soft. Yan's foot was placed on it and a line drawn around the foot for a guide; this when cut out made the sole of one moccasin (A, cut below), and by turning it underside up it served as pattern to cut the other.
Now Caleb measured the length of the foot and added one inch, and the width across the instep, adding half an inch, and with these as greatest length and breadth cut out a piece of soft leather (B). Then in this he made the cut _a b_ on the middle line one way and _c d_ on the middle line the other way. A second piece the reverse of this was cut, and next a piece of soft leather for inside tongue (C) was sewn to the large piece (B), so that the edge _a b_ of C was fast to _a b_ of B. A second piece was sewn to the other leather (B reversed).
"Them's your vamps for uppers. Now's the time to bead 'em if you want to."
"Don't know how."
"Well, I can't larn you that; that's a woman's work. But I kin show you the pattern of the first pair I ever wore; I ain't likely to forget 'em, for I killed the Buffalo myself and seen the hull making." He might have added that he subsequently married the squaw, but he did not.
"There's about the style" [D]. "Them three-cornered red and white things all round is the hills where the moccasins was to carry me safely; on the heel is a little blue pathway with nothing in it: that is behind--it's past. On the instep is three red, white and blue pathways where the moccasin was to take me: they're ahead--in the future. Each path has lots of things in it, mostly changes and trails, an' all three ends in an Eagle feather--that stands for an honour. Ye kin paint them that way after they're made. Well, now, we'll sew on the upper with a good thick strand of sinew in the needle--or if you have an awl you kin do without a needle on a pinch--and be sure to bring the stitches out the edge of the sole instead of right through, then they don't wear off. That's the way." [E.]
So they worked away, clumsily, while Guy snickered and sizzled, and Sam suggested that Si Lee would make a better squaw than both of them.
The sole as well as the upper being quite soft allowed them to turn the moccasin inside out as often as they liked--and they did like; it seemed necessary to reverse it every few minutes. But at length the two pieces were fastened together all around, the seam gap at the heel was quickly sewn up, four pairs of lace holes were made (_a, b, c, d_, in D), and an eighteen-inch strip of soft leather run through them for a lace.
Now Yan painted the uppers with his Indian paints in the pattern that Caleb had suggested, and the moccasins were done.
A squaw would have made half a dozen good pairs while Yan and Caleb made the one poor pair, but she would not have felt so happy about it.
XIV
Caleb's Philosophy
The tracks of Mink appeared from time to time on Yan's creekside mud albums, and at length another of these tireless watchers, placed at the Wakan Rock, reported to him that Mink as well as Skunks came there now for a nightly feast.
The Mink was a large one, judging by the marks, and Caleb was asked to help in trapping it.
"How do you trap Mink, Mr. Clark?" was the question.
"Don't trap 'em at all this time o' year, for they're no good till October," was the answer.
"Well, how do you trap them when they are in season?"
"Oh, different ways."
It was slow work, but Yan kept on and at length got the old man going.
"Airly days we always used a deadfall for Mink. That's made like this, with a bird or a Partridge head for bait. That kills him sure, sudden and merciful. Then if it's cold weather he freezes and keeps O.K. till you come around to get him; but in warm weather lots o' pelts are spoiled by being kept too long, so ye have to go round pretty often to save all you kill. Then some one brought in them new-fangled steel traps that catches them by the foot and holds them for days and days, some times, till they jest starve to death or chaw their foot off to get free. I mind once I ketched a Mink with only two legs left. He had been in a steel trap twice before and chawed off his leg to get away. Them traps save the trapper going round so often, but they're expensive, and heavy to carry, and you have got to be awful hard-hearted before ye kin use 'em. I tell ye, when I thought of all the sufferin' that Mink went through it settled me for steel traps. Since then, says I, if ye must trap, use a deadfall or a ketchalive, one or other; no manglin' an' tormentin' for days. I tell ye that thar new Otter trap that grabs them in iron claws ought to be forbid by law; it ain't human.
"Same way about huntin'. Huntin's great sport, an' it can't be bad, 'cause I can't for the life of me see that it makes men bad. 'Pears to me men as hunt is humaner than them as is above it; as for the cruelty--wall, we know that no wild animal dies easy abed. They all get killed soon or late, an' if it's any help to man to kill them I reckon he has as good a right to do it as Wolves an' Wildcats. It don't hurt any more--yes, a blame sight less--to be killed by a rifle ball than to be chawed by Wolves. The on'y thing I says is don't do it cruel--an' don't wipe out the hull bunch. If ye never kill a thing that's no harm to ye 'live an' no good to ye dead nor more than the country kin stand, 'pears to me ye won't do much harm, an' ye'll have a lot o' real fun to think about afterward.
"But I mind a feller from Europe, some kind o' swell, that I was guidin' out West. He had crippled a Deer so it couldn't get away. Then he sat down to eat lunch right by, and every few moments he'd fire a shot into some part or another, experimentin' an' aimin' not to kill it for awhile. I heard the shootin' an' blattin', an when I come up I tell ye it set my blood a-boilin'. I called him some names men don't like, an' put that Deer out o' pain quick as I could pull trigger. That bu'st up our party--I didn't want no more o' him. He come pretty near lyin' by the Deer that day. It makes me hot yet when I think of it.
"If he'd shot that Deer down runnin' an' killed it as quick as he could it wouldn't 'a' suffered more than if it had been snagged a little, 'cause bullets of right weight numb when they hit. The Deer wouldn't have suffered more than he naturally would at his finish, maybe less, an' he'd 'a' suffered it at a time when he could be some good to them as hunted him. An' these yer new repeatin' guns is a curse. A feller knows he has lots of shot and so blazes away into a band o' Deer as long as he can see, an lots gets away crippled, to suffer an' die; but when a feller has only one shot he's going to place it mighty keerful. Ef it's sport ye want, get a single-shot rifle, ef it's destruction, get a Gatling-gun.
"Sport's good, but I'm agin this yer wholesale killin' an' cruelty. Steel traps, light-weight bullets an' repeatin' guns ain't human. I tell ye it's them as makes all the sufferin'."
This was a long speech for Caleb, but it was really less connected than here given. Yan had to keep him going with occasional questions. This he followed up.
"What do you think about bows and arrows, Mr. Clark?"
"I wouldn't like to use them on big game like Bear and Deer, but I'd be glad if shotguns was done away with and small game could be killed only with arrows. They are either sure death or clear miss. There's no cripples to get away and die. You can't fire an arrow into a flock of birds and wipe out one hundred, like you can with one of them blame scatterguns. It's them things that is killing off all the small game. Some day they'll invent a scattergun that is a pump repeater like them new rifles, and when every fool has one they'll wonder where all the small game has gone to.
"No, sir, I'm agin them. Bows and arrows is less destructful an' calls for more Woodcraft an' give more sport--that is, for small game. Besides, they don't make that awful racket, an' you know who is the party that owns the shot, for every arrow is marked."
Yan was sorry that Caleb did not indorse the arrow for big game, too.
The Trapper was well started now; he seemed ready enough with information to-day, and Yan knew enough to "run the rapids on the freshet."
"How do you make a ketchalive?"
"What for?"
"Oh, Mink."
"They ain't fit to catch now, and the young ones need the mothers."
"I wouldn't keep it. I only want to make a drawing."
"Guess that won't harm it if you don't keep it too long. Have ye any boards? We used to chop the whole thing out of a piece of Balsam wood or White Pine, but the more stuff ye find ready-made the easier it is. Now I'll show you how to make a ketchalive if ye'll promise me never to miss a day going to it while it is set."
The boys did not understand how any one could miss a day in visiting a place of so much interest, and readily promised.
So they made a ketchalive, or box-trap, two feet long, using hay wire to make a strong netting at one end.
"Now," said the trapper, "that will catch Mink, Muskrat, Skunk, Rabbit--'most anything, 'cording to where you put it and how you bait it."
"Seems to me the Wakan Rock will be a good place to try."
So the trap was baited with a fish head firmly lashed on the wire trigger.
In the morning, as Yan approached, he saw that it was sprung. A peculiar whining and scratching came from it and he shouted in great excitement: "Boys, boys, I've got him! I've got the Mink!"
They seized the trap and held it cautiously up for the sunlight to shine through the bars, and there saw to their disgust that they had captured only the old gray Cat. As soon as the lid was raised she bounded away, spitting and hissing, no doubt to hurry home to tell the Kittens that it was all right, although she had been away so long.
XV
A Visit from Raften
"Sam, I must have another note-book. It's no good getting up a new 'massacree' of Whites, 'cause there ain't any note-books there, but maybe your father would get one the next time he drove to Downey's Dump. I suppose I'll have to go on a peace party to ask him."
Sam made no answer, but looked and listened out toward the trail, then said: "Talk of the er--Angels, here comes Da."
When the big man strode up Yan and Guy became very shy and held back. Sam, in full war-paint, prattled on in his usual style.
"Morning, Da; I'm yer kid. Bet ye'r in trouble an' want advice or something."
Raften rolled up his pendulous lips and displayed his huge front tusks in a vast purple-and-yellow grin that set the boys' hearts at ease.
"Kind o' thought you'd be sick av it before now."
"Will you let us stay here till we are?" chimed in Sam, then without awaiting the reply that he did not want, "Say, Da, how long is it since there was any Deer around here?"
"Pretty near twenty years, I should say."
"Well, look at that now," whispered the Woodpecker.
Raften looked and got quite a thrill for the dummy, half hidden in the thicket, looked much like a real deer.
"Don't you want to try a shot?" ventured Yan.
Raften took the bow and arrow and made such a poor showing that he returned them with the remark. "Sure a gun's good enough for me," then, "Ole Caleb been around since?"
"Old Caleb? I should say so; why, he's our stiddy company."
"'Pears fonder o'you than he is of me."
"Say, Da, tell us about that. How do you know it was Caleb shot at you?"
"Oh, I don't know it to prove it in a coort o' law, but we quarr'led that day in town after the Horse trade an' he swore he'd fix me an' left town. His own stepson, Dick Pogue, stood right by and heard him say it; then at night when I came along the road by the green bush I was fired at, an' next day we found Caleb's tobacco pouch and some letters not far away. That's about all I know, an' all I want to know. Pogue served him a mean trick about the farm, but that's none o' my business. I 'spect the old fellow will have to get out an' scratch for himself pretty soon."
"He seems kind-hearted," said Yan.
"Ah, he's got an awful temper, an' when he gets drunk he'd do anything. Other times he's all right."
"Well, how is it about the farm?" Sam asked. "Doesn't he own it?"
"No, I guess not now. I don't r'aly know. I only hear them say. Av coorse, Saryann ain't his own daughter. She's nowt o' kin, but he has no one else, and Dick was my hired man--a purty slick feller with his tongue; he could talk a bird off a bush; but he was a good worker. He married Sary and persuaded the old man to deed them the place, him to live in comfort with them to the end of his days. But once they got the place, 'twas aisy to see that Dick meant to get rid o' Caleb, an' the capsheaf was put last year, about his Dog, old Turk. They wouldn't have him 'round. They said he was scaring the hens and chasing sheep, which is like enough, for I believe he killed wan ov my lambs, an' I'd give ten dollars to have him killed--making sure 'twas him, av coorse. Rather than give up the Dog, Caleb moved out into the shanty on the creek at the other end of the place. Things was better then, for Dick and Saryann let up for awhile an' sent him lots o' flour an' stuff, but folks say they're fixin' it to put the old man out o' that and get shet of him for good. But I dunno; it's none o' my business, though he does blame me for putting Dick up to it."
"How's the note-book?" as Raften's eye caught sight of the open sketch-book still in Yan's hand.
"Oh, that reminds me," was the reply. "But what is this?" He showed the hoof-mark be had sketched. Raften examined it curiously.
"H-m, I dunno'; 'pears to me moighty loike a big Buck. But I guess not; there ain't any left."
"Say, Da," Sam persisted, "wouldn't you be sore if you was an old man robbed and turned out?"
"Av coorse; but I wouldn't lose in a game of swap-horse, an' then go gunnin' after the feller. If I had owt agin him I'd go an' lick him or be licked, an' take it all good-natured. Now that's enough. We'll talk about something else."
"Will you buy me another note-book next time you go to Downey's Dump? I don't know how much it will cost or I'd give you the money," said Yan, praying mentally that it be not more than the five or ten cents which was all his capital.
"Shure; I'll charge it up. But ye needn't wait till next week. Thayer's one back at the White settlement ye can have for nothin'."
"Say, Mr. Raften," Guy broke in, "I kin lick them all at Deer-hunting."
Sam looked at Yan and Yan looked at Sam, then glanced at Guy, made some perfectly diabolical signs, seized each a long knife and sprung toward the Third War Chief, but he dodged behind Raften and commenced his usual "Now you let me 'lone--"
Raften's eye twinkled. "Shure, I thought ye was all wan Tribe an' paceable."
"We've got to suppress crime," retorted his son.
"Make him let me 'lone," whimpered Sapwood.
"We'll let ye off this time if ye find that Woodchuck. It's near two days since we've had a skirmish."
"All right," and he went. Within five minutes he came running back, beckoning. The boys got their bows and arrows, but fearing a trick they held back. Guy dashed for his own weapons with unmistakable and reassuring zest; then all set out for the field. Raften followed, after asking if it would be safe for him to come along.
The grizzly old Woodchuck was there feeding in a bunch of clover. The boys sneaked under the fence, crawling through the grass in true Injun fashion, till the Woodchuck stood up to look around, then they lay still; when he went down they crawled again, and all got within forty yards. Now the old fellow seemed suspicious, so Sam said, "Next time he feeds we all fire together." As soon, then, as the Woodchuck's breast was replaced by the gray back, the boys got partly up and fired. The arrows whizzed around Old Grizzly, but all missed, and he had scrambled to his hole before they could send a second volley.
"Hallo, why didn't you hit him, Sappy?"
"I'll bet I do next time."
When they returned to Raften he received them with ridicule.
"But ye'r a poor lot o' hunters. Ye'd all starve if it wasn't for the White settlement nearby. Faith, if ye was rale Injun ye'd sit up all night at that hole till he come out in the morning: then ye'd get him; an' when ye get through with that one I've got another in the high pasture ye kin work on."
So saying, he left them, and Sam called after him:
"Say, Da; where's that note-book for Yan? He's the Chief of the 'coup-tally,' and I reckon he'll soon have a job an' need his book. I feel it in my bones."
"I'll lave it on yer bed." Which he did, and Yan and Sam had the pleasure of lifting it out of the window with a split stick.
XVI
How Yan Knew the Ducks Afar
One day as the great Woodpecker lay on his back in the shade he said in a tone of lofty command:
"Little Beaver, I want to be amused. Come hyar. Tell me a story."
"How would you like a lesson in Tutnee?" was the Second Chief's reply, but he had tried this before, and he found neither Sam nor Guy inclined to take any interest in the very dead language.
"Tell me a story, I said," was the savage answer of the scowling and ferocious Woodpecker.
"All right," said Little Beaver. "I'll tell you a story of such a fine boy--oh, he was the noblest little hero that ever wore pantaloons or got spanked in school. Well, this boy went to live in the woods, and he wanted to get acquainted with all the living wild things. He found lots of difficulties and no one to help him, but he kept on and on--oh! he was so noble and brave--and made notes, and when he learned anything new he froze on to it like grim death. By and by he got a book that was some help, but not much. It told about some of the birds as if you had them _in your hand_. But this heroic youth only saw them at a distance and he was stuck. One day he saw a wild Duck on a pond so far away he could only see some spots of colour, but he made a sketch of it, and later he found out from that rough sketch that it was a Whistler, and then this wonderful boy had an idea. All the Ducks are different; all have little blots and streaks that are their labels, or like the uniforms of soldiers. 'Now, if I can put their uniforms down on paper I'll know the Ducks as soon as I see them on a pond a long way off.' So he set to work and drew what he could find. One of his friends had a stuffed Wood-duck, so the 'Boy-that-wanted-to-know' drew that from a long way off. He got another from an engraving and two more from the window of a taxidermist shop. But he knew perfectly well that there are twenty or thirty different kinds of Ducks, for he often saw others at a distance and made far-sketches, hoping some day he'd find out what they were. Well, one day the 'Boy-that-wanted-to-know' sketched a new Duck on a pond, and he saw it again and again, but couldn't find out what it was, and there was his b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l sketch, but no one to tell him its name, so when he saw that he just had to go into the teepee and steal the First War Chief's last apple and eat it to hide his emotion."
Here Yan produced an apple and began to eat it with an air of sadness.
Without changing a muscle, the Great Woodpecker continued the tale:
"Then when the First War Chief heard the harrowing tale of a blighted life, he said: 'Shucks, I didn't want that old apple. It was fished out of the swill-barrel anyway, but 'pears to me when a feller sets out to do a thing an' don't he's a 'dumb failure,' which ain't much difference from a 'durn fool.'
"Now, if this heroic youth had had gumption enough to come out flat-footed, an' instead of stealing rotten apples that the pigs has walked on, had told his trouble to the Great Head War Chief, that native-born noble Red-man would 'a' said: 'Sonny, quite right. When in doubt come to Grandpa. You want to get sharp on Duck. Ugh! Good'--then he'd 'a' took that simple youth to Downey's Hotel at Downey's Dump an' there showed him every kind o' Duck that ever was born, an' all tagged an' labelled. Wah! I have spoken."
And the Great Woodpecker scowled ferociously at Guy, who was vainly searching his face for a clue, not sure but what this whole thing was some subtle mockery. But Yan had been on the lookout for this. Sam's face throughout had shown nothing but real and growing interest. The good sense of this last suggestion was evident, and the result was an expedition was formed at once for Downey's Dump, a little town five miles away, where the railroad crossed a long bog on the Skagbog River. Here Downey, the contractor, had carried the railroad dump across a supposed bottomless morass and by good luck had soon made a bottom and in consequence a small fortune, with which he built a hotel, and was now the great man of the town for which he had done so much.
"Guess we'll leave the Third War Chief in charge of camp," said Sam, "an' I think we ought to go disguised as Whites."
"You mean to go back to the Settlement and join the Whites?"
"Yep, an' take a Horse an' buggy, too. It's five miles."
That was a jarring note. Yan's imagination had pictured a foot expedition through the woods, but this was more sensible, so he yielded.
They went to the house to report and had a loving reception from the mother and little Minnie. The men were away. The boys quickly harnessed a Horse and, charged also with some commissions from the mother, they drove to Downey's Dump.
On arriving they went first to the livery-stable to put up the horse, then to the store, where Sam delivered his mother's orders, and having made sure that Yan had pencil, paper and rubber, they went into Downey's. Yan's feelings were much like those of a country boy going for the first time to a circus--now he is really to see the things he has dreamed of so long; now all heaven is his.
And, curiously enough, he was not disappointed. Downey was a rough, vigorous business man. He took no notice of the boys beyond a brief "Morning, Sam," till he saw that Yan was making very fair sketches. All the world loves an artist, and now there was danger of too much assistance.
The cases could not be opened, but were swung around and shades raised to give the best light. Yan went at once to the bird he had "far-sketched" on the pond. To his surprise, it was a female Wood-duck. He put in the whole afternoon drawing those Ducks, male and female, and as Downey had more than fifty specimens Yan felt like Aladdin in the Fairy Garden--overpowered with abundance of treasure. The birds were fairly well labelled with the popular names, and Yan brought away a lot of sketches, which made him very happy. These he afterward carefully finished and put together in a Duck Chart that solved many of his riddles about the Common Duck.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Fish-Ducks, Sawbills, or Mergansers]
[Illustration: The River Ducks]
(See description below.)
Far-sketches showing common Ducks as seen on the water at about 50 yards distance. The pair is shown in each square, the male above.
N.B. The wings are rarely seen when the bird is swimming.
THE FISH-DUCK, SAWBILLS OR MERGANSERS
Largely white and all are crested, wings with large white areas in flight.
1. The Shelldrake or Goosander (_Merganser americanus_). Bill, feet and eye red.
2. The Sawbill or Red-breasted Merganser (_Merganser serrator_). Bill and feet red.
3. Hooded Merganser (_Lophodytes cucullatus_). Bill and feet dark, paddle-box buff.
THE RIVER DUCKS
The males usually with shining green and black on head and wings, the females streaky gray-brown.
4. Mallard _(Anas boschas_). Red feet; male has pale, greenish bill. Known in flight by white tail feathers and thin white bar on wing.
5. Black Duck or Dusky Duck (_Anas obscura_). Dark bill, red feet, no white except in flight, then shows white lining of wings.
6. Gadwall or Gray Duck (_Anas strepera_). Beak flesh-coloured on edges, feet reddish, a white spot on wing showing in flight.
7. Widgeon or Baldpate (_A. americana_). Bill and feet dull blue; a large white spot on wing in flight; female has sides reddish.
8. Green-winged Teal (_A. carolinensis_). Bill and feet dark.
9. Blue-winged Teal (_A. discors_). Bill and feet dark.
10. Shoveller (_Spatula clypeata_). Bill dark, feet red, eye yellow-orange; a white patch on wings showing in flight
11. Pintail or Sprigtail (_Dafila acuta_). Bill and feet dull blue.
12. Wood Duck or Summer Duck (_Aix sponsa_). Bill of male red, paddle-box buff, bill of female and feet of both dark.
[Illustration: The Sea Ducks]
THE SEA DUCKS
Chiefly black and white in colour; the female brownish instead of black; most have yellow or orange eye, and more or less white on wings which does not show as they swim.
13. Red-head (_Aythya americana_). Head and neck bright red; eye of male yellow, bill and feet blue.
14. Canvasback (_A. vallisneria_). Head and neck dark-red, eye of male red, bill and feet of both dark or bluish.
15. Ring-necked Bluebill (_A. collaria_). Bill and feet bluish.
16. Big Bluebill (_A. marila_). Bill and feet bluish.
17. Little Bluebill (_A. affinis_). Same colour as the preceding.
18. Whistler or Goldeneye (_Clangula clangula americana_). Feet orange.
19. Bufflehead or Butterball (_Charitonetta albeola_).
20. Old-Squaw or Longtail (_Harelda hyemalis_). This is its winter plumage, in which it is mostly seen.
21. Black Scoter (_Oidemia americana_). A jet-black Duck with orange bill; no white on it anywhere.
22. White-winged Scoter (_O. deglandi_). A black Duck with white on cheek and wing; feet and bill orange; much white on wing shows as they fly, sometimes none as they swim.
23. Surf Duck or Sea Coot (_O. perspicillata_). A black Duck with white on head, but none on wings: bill and feet orange.
24. Ruddy Duck or Stiff-tailed Duck (_Erismatura jamaicensis_). Bill and feet bluish; male is in general a dull red with white face.
* * * * *
When they got back to camp at dusk they found a surprise. On the trail was a white thing, which on investigation proved to be a ghost, evidently made by Guy. The head was a large puff-ball carved like a skull, and the body a newspaper.
But the teepee was empty. Guy probably felt too much reaction after the setting up of the ghost to sit there alone in the still night.
XVII
Sam's Woodcraft Exploit
Sam's "long suit," as he put it, was axemanship. He was remarkable even in this land of the axe, and, of course, among the "Injuns" he was a marvel. Yan might pound away for half an hour at some block that he was trying to split and make no headway, till Sam would say, "Yan, hit it right there," or perhaps take the axe and do it for him; then at one tap the block would fly apart. There was no rule for this happy hit. Sometimes it was above the binding knot, sometimes beside it, sometimes right in the middle of it, and sometimes in the end of the wood away from the binder altogether--often at the unlikeliest places. Sometimes it was done by a simple stroke, sometimes a glancing stroke, sometimes with the grain or again angling, and sometimes a compound of one or more of each kind of blow; but whatever was the right stroke, Sam seemed to know it instinctively and applied it to exactly the right spot, the only spot where the hard, tough log was open to attack, and rarely failed to make it tumble apart as though it were a trick got ready beforehand. He did not brag about it. He simply took it for granted that he was the master of the art, and as such the others accepted him.
On one occasion Yan, who began to think he now had some skill, was whacking away at a big, tough stick till he had tried, as he thought, every possible combination and still could make no sign of a crack. Then Guy insisted on "showing him how," without any better result.
"Here, Sam," cried Yan, "I'll bet this is a baffler for you."
Sam turned the stick over, selected a hopeless-looking spot, one as yet not touched by the axe, set the stick on end, poured a cup of water on the place, then, when that had soaked in, he struck with all his force a single straight blow at the line where the grain spread to embrace the knot. The aim was true to a hair and the block flew open.
"Hooray!" shouted Little Beaver in admiration.
"Pooh!" said Sapwood. "That was just chance. He couldn't do that again."
"Not to the same stick!" retorted Yan. He recognized the consummate skill and the cleverness of knowing that the cup of water was just what was needed to rob the wood of its spring and turn the balance.
But Guy continued contemptuously, "I had it started for him."
"_I_ think that should count a _coup_," said Little Beaver.
"Coup nothin'," snorted the Third War Chief, in scorn. "I'll give you something to do that'll try if you can chop. Kin you chop a six-inch tree down in three minutes an' throw it up the wind ?"
"What kind o' tree?" asked the Woodpecker.
"Oh, any kind."
"I'll bet you five dollars I kin cut down a six-inch White Pine in two minutes an' throw it any way I want to. You pick out the spot for me to lay it. Mark it with a stake an' I'll drive the stake."
"I don't think any of the Tribe has five dollars to bet. If you can do it we'll give you a grand coup feather," answered Little Beaver.
"No spring pole," said Guy, eager to make it impossible.
"All right," replied the Woodpecker; "I'll do it without using a spring pole."
So he whetted up his axe, tried the lower margin of the head, found it was a trifle out of the true--that is, its under curve centred, not on the handle one span down, but half an inch out from the handle. A nail driven into the point of the axe-eye corrected this and the chiefs went forth to select a tree. A White Pine that measured roughly six inches through was soon found, and Sam was allowed to clear away the brush around it. Yan and Guy now took a stout stake and, standing close to the tree, looked up the trunk. Of course, every tree in the woods leans one way or another, and it was easy to see that this leaned slightly southward. What wind there was came from the north, so Yan decided to set the stake due north.
Sam's little Japanese eyes twinkled. But Guy who, of course, knew something of chopping, fairly exploded with scorn. "Pooh! What do you know? That's easy; any one can throw it straight up the wind. Give him a cornering shot and let him try. There, now," and Guy set the stake off to the north-west. "Now, smarty. Let's see you do that."
"All right. You'll see me. Just let me look at it a minute."
Sam walked round the tree, studied its lean and the force of the wind on its top, rolled up his sleeves, slipped his suspenders, spat on his palms, and, standing to west of the tree, said _"Ready_."
Yan had his watch out and shouted "_Go_."
Two firm, unhasty strokes up on the south side of the tree left a clean nick across and two inches deep in the middle. The chopper then stepped forward one pace and on the north-northwesterly side, eighteen inches lower down than the first cut, after reversing his hands--which is what few can do--he rapidly chopped a butt-kerf. Not a stroke was hasty; not a blow went wrong. The first chips that flew were ten inches long, but they quickly dwindled as the kerf sank in. The butt-kerf was two-thirds through the tree when Yan called "One minute up." Sam stopped work, apparently without cause, leaned one hand against the south side of the tree and gazed unconcernedly up at its top.
"Hurry up, Sam. You're losing time!" called his friend. Sam made no reply. He was watching the wind pushes and waiting for a strong one. It came--it struck the tree-top. There was an ominous crack, but Sam had left enough and pushed hard to make sure; as soon as the recoil began he struck in very rapid succession three heavy strokes, cutting away all the remaining wood on the west side and leaving only a three-inch triangle of uncut fibre. All the weight was now northwest of this. The tree toppled that way, but swung around on the uncut part; another puff of wind gave help, the swing was lost, the tree crashed down to the northwest and drove the stake right out of sight in the ground.
"Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! One minute and forty-five seconds!" How Yan did cheer. Sam was silent, but his eyes looked a little less dull and stupid than usual, and Guy said "Pooh? That's nothin'."
Yan took out his pocket rule and went to the stump. As soon as he laid it on, he exclaimed "Seven and one-half inches through where you cut," and again he had to swing his hat and cheer.
"Well, old man, you surely did it that time. That's a grand coup if ever I saw one," and so, notwithstanding Guy's proposal to "leave it to Caleb," Sam got his grand Eagle feather as Axeman A1 of the Sanger Indians.
XVIII
The Owls and The Night School
One night Sam was taking a last look at the stars before turning in. A Horned Owl had been hooting not far away.
"_Hoo--hohoo-hoho--hoooooo_."
And as he looked, what should silently sail to the top of the medicine pole stuck in the ground twenty yards away but the Owl.
"Yan! Yan! Give me my bow and arrow, quick. Here's a Cat-Owl--a chicken stealer, he's fair game."
"He's only codding you, Yan," said Guy sleepily from his blanket. "I wouldn't go."
But Yan rushed out with his own and Sam's weapons.
Sam fired at the great feathery creature, but evidently missed, for the Owl spread its wings and sailed away.
"There goes my best arrow. That was my 'Sure-death.'"
"Pshaw!" growled Yan, as he noted the miss. "You can't shoot a little bit."
But as they stood, there was a fluttering of broad wings, and there, alighting as before on the medicine pole, was the Owl again.
"My turn now!" exclaimed Yan in a gaspy whisper.
He drew his bow, the arrow flew, and the Owl slipped off unharmed as it had the first time.
"Yan, you're no good. An easy shot like that. Why, any idiot could hit that. Why didn't you fetch her?"
"'Cause I'm not an idiot, I suppose. I hit the same place as you did, anyway, and drew just as much blood."
"Ef he comes back again you call me," piped Guy in his shrill voice. "I'll show you fellers how to shoot. You're no good at all 'thout me. Why, I mind the time I was Deer-shooting----" but a fierce dash of the whole Tribe for Sappy's bed put a stop to the reminiscent flow and replaced it with whines of "Now you let me alone. I ain't doin' nothin' to you."
During the night they were again awakened by the screech in the tree-tops, and Yan, sitting up, said, "Say, boys, that's nothing but that big Cat Owl."
"So it is," was Sam's answer; "wonder I didn't think of that before."
"I did," said Guy; "I knew it all the time."
In the morning they went out to find their arrows. The medicine pole was a tall pole bearing a feathered shield, with the tribal totem, a white Buffalo, which Yan had set up to be in Indian fashion. Sighting in line from the teepee over this, they walked on, looking far beyond, for they had learned always to draw the arrow to the head. They had not gone twenty-five feet before Yan burst out in unutterable astonishment: "Look! Look at that--and _that_------"
There on the ground not ten feet apart were two enormous Horned Owls, both shot fairly through the heart, one with Sam's "Sure-death" arrow, the other with Yan's "Whistler"; both shots had been true, and the boys could only say, "Well, if you saw that in print you would say it was a big lie!" It was indeed one of those amazing things which happen only in real life, and the whole of the Tribe with one exception voted a _grand coup_ to each of the hunters.
Guy was utterly contemptuous. "They got so close they hit by chance an' didn't know they done it. If he had been shooting," etc., etc., etc.
"How about that screech in the tree-tops, Guy?"
"Errrrh."
What a fascination the naturalist always finds in a fine Bird. Yan revelled in these two. He measured their extent of wing and the length from beak to tail of each. He studied the pattern on their quills; he was thrilled by their great yellow eyes and their long, powerful claws, and he loved their every part. He hated to think that in a few days these wonderful things would be disgusting and fit only to be buried.
"I wish I knew hew to stuff them," he said.
"Why don't you get Si Lee to show you," was Sam's suggestion. "Seems to me I often seen pictures of Injun medicine men with stuffed birds," he added shrewdly and happily.
"Well, that's just what I will do."
Then arose a knotty question. Should he go to Si Lee and thereby turn "White" and break the charm of the Indian life, or should he attempt the task of persuading Si to come down there to work without proper conveniences. They voted to bring Si to camp. "Da might think we was backing out." After all, the things needed were easily carried, and Si, having been ambushed by a scout, consented to come and open a night-school in taxidermy.
The tools and things that he brought were a bundle of tow made by unravelling a piece of rope, some cotton wool, strong linen thread, two long darning needles, arsenical soap worked up like cream, corn-meal, some soft iron wire about size sixteen and some of stovepipe size, a file, a pair of pliers, wire cutters, a sharp knife, a pair of stout scissors, a gimlet, two ready-made wooden stands, and last of all a good lamp. The boys hitherto had been content with the firelight.
Thus in the forest teepee Yan had his first lesson in the art that was to give him so much joy and some sorrow in the future.
Guy was interested, though scornful; Sam was much interested; Yan was simply rapt, and Si Lee was in his glory. His rosy red cheeks and his round figure swelled with pride; even his semi-nude head and fat, fumbling fingers seemed to partake of his general elation and importance.
First he stuffed the Owls' throats and wounds with cotton wool.
Then he took one, cut a slit from the back of the breast-bone nearly to the tail (_A_ to _B_, Fig. 1), while Yan took the other and tried faithfully to follow his example.
He worked the skin from the body chiefly by the use of his finger nails, till he could reach the knee of each leg and cut this through at the joint with the knife (_Kn,_ Fig. 1). The flesh was removed from each leg-bone down to the heel-joint (_Hl, Hl_, Fig. 1), leaving the leg and skin as in _Lg_, Figure 2. Then working back on each side of the tail, he cut the "pope's nose" from the body and left it as part of the skin, with the tail feathers in it, and this, Si explained, was a hard place to get around. Sam called it "rounding Cape Horn." As the flesh was exposed Si kept it powdered thickly with corn-meal, and this saved the feathers from soiling.
Once around Cape Horn it was easy sailing. The skin was rapidly pushed off till the wings were reached. These were cut off at the joint deep in the breast (under _J J_, Fig. 1, or seen on the back, _W J_, Fig. 2), the first bone of each wing was cleared of meat, and the skin, now inside out and well mealed, was pushed off the neck up to the head.
Here Si explained that in most birds it would slip easily over the head, but in Owls, Woodpeckers, Ducks and some others one had sometimes to help it by a lengthwise slit on the nape (_Sn_, Fig. 2). "Owls is hard, anyway," he went on, "though not so bad as Water-fowl. If ye want a real easy bird for a starter, take a Robin or a Blackbird, or any land Bird about that size except Woodpeckers."
When the ears were reached they were skinned and pulled out of the skull without cutting, then, after the eyes were passed, the skin and body looked as in Figure 2. Now the back of the head with the neck and body was cut off (_Ct_, Fig. 2), and the first operation of the skinning was done.
Yan got along fairly well, tearing and cutting the skin once or twice, but learning very quickly to manage it.
Now began the cleaning of the skin.
The eyes were cut clean out and the brains and flesh carefully scraped away from the skull.
The wing bones were already cleaned of meat down to the elbow joint, where the big quill feathers began, and the rest of the wing had to be cleared of flesh by cutting open the under side of the next joint (_H_ to _El_, Fig. 1). The "pope's nose" and the skin generally was freed from meat and grease by scraping with a knife and rubbing with the meal.
Then came the poisoning. Every part of the bones and flesh had to be painted with the creamy arsenical soap, then the head was worked back into its place and the skin turned right side out.
When this was done it was quite late. Guy was asleep, Sam was nearly so, and Yan was thoroughly tired out.
"Guess I'll go now," said Si. "Them skins is in good shape to keep, only don't let them dry," so they were wrapped up in a damp sack and put away in a tin till next night, when Si promised to return and finish the course in one more lesson.
[Illustration: Owl-stuffing plate]
OWL-STUFFING PLATE
Fig. 1. The dead Owl, showing the cuts made in skinning it: A to B, for the body; El to H, on each wing, to remove the meat of the second joint.
Fig. 2. After the skinning is done the skull remains attached to the skin, which is now inside out, the neck and body are cut off at Ct. Sn to Sn shows the slit in the nape needed for Owls and several other kinds.
Fig. 3. Top view of the tow body, neck end up, and neck wire projecting.
Fig. 4. Side view of the tow body, with the neck wire put through it; the tail end is downward.
Fig. 5. The heavy iron wire for neck.
Fig. 6. The Owl after the body is put in; it is now ready to close up, by stitching up the slit on the nape, the body slit B to C and the two wing slits El to H, on each wing.
Fig. 7. A dummy as it _would look_ if all the feathers were off; this shows the proper position for legs and wings on the body. At W is a glimpse of the leg wire entering the body at the middle of the side.
Fig. 8. Another view of the body without feathers; the dotted lines show the wires of the legs through the hard body, and the neck wire.
Fig. 9. Two views of one of the wooden eyes; these are on a much larger scale than the rest of the figures in this plate.
Fig. 10. The finished Owl, with the thread wrappings on and the wires still projecting; Nw is end of the neck wire; Bp is back-pin--that is, the wire in the center of the back; Ww and Ww are the wing wires; Tl are the cards pinned on the tail to hold it flat while it dries. The last operation is to remove the threads and cut all the wires off close so that the feathers hide what remains.
While they were so working Sam had busied himself opening the Owls' stomachs--"looking up their records," as he called it. He now reported that one had lynched a young Partridge and the other had killed a Rabbit for its latest meal.
Next night Si Lee came as promised, but brought bad news. He had failed to find the glass Owl eyes he had hoped were in his trunk. His ingenuity, however, was of the kind that is never balked in a small matter. He produced some black and yellow oil paints, explaining, "Guess we'll make wooden eyes do for the present, an' when you get to town you can put glass ones in their place." So Sam was set to work whittling four wooden eyes the shape of well-raised buns and about three-quarters of an inch across. When whittled, scraped and smooth, Si painted them brilliant yellow with a central black spot and put them away to dry (shown on a large scale on Owl Stuffing Plate, Fig. 9, _a_ and _b_).
Meanwhile, he and Yan got out the two skins. The bloody feathers on the breasts were washed clean in a cup of warm water, then dried with cotton and dusted all over with meal to soak up any moisture left. The leg and wing bones were now wrapped with as much tow as would take the place of the removed meat. The eye sockets were partly filled with cotton, then a long soft roll of tow about the length and thickness of the original neck was worked up into the neck skin and into the skull and left hanging. The ends of the two wing bones were fastened two inches apart with a shackle of strong string (_X_, Fig. 2 and Fig. 7). Now the body was needed.
For this Si rolled and lashed a wad of tow with strong thread until he made a dummy of the same size and shape as the body taken out, squeezing and sewing it into a hard solid mass. Next he cut about two and a half feet of the large wire, filed both ends sharp, doubled about four inches of one end back in a hook (Fig. 5), then drove the long end through the tow body from the tail end out where the neck should join on (Figs. 3 and 4). This was driven well in so that the short end of the hook was buried out of sight. Now Si passed the projecting ends of the long wire up the neck in the middle of the tow roll or neck already there, worked it through the skull and out at the top of the Owl's head, and got the tow body properly placed in the skin with the string that bound the wing bones across the back (_X_, Fig. 7).
Two heavy wires each eighteen inches long and sharp at one end were needed for the legs. These were worked up one through the sole of each foot under the skin of the leg behind (_Lw_, Fig. 6), then through the tow body at the middle of the side (_W_, Fig. 7), after which the sharp end was bent with pliers into a hook and driven back into the hard body (after the manner of the neck wire, Fig. 4).
Another wire was sharpened and driven through the bones of the tail, fastening that also to the tow body (_Tw_, Fig. 7).
Now a little soft tow was packed into places where it seemed needed to fit the skin on, and it remained to sew up the opening below (_Bc_ in Fig. 6), the wing slits (_El, H_, Fig. 6 and Fig. 1), and the slit in the nape (_Sn Sn_, Fig. 2) with half a dozen stitches, always putting the needle into the skin from the flesh side.
The projecting wires of the feet were put through gimlet holes in the perch and made firm, and Si's Owls were ready for their positions. They were now the most ridiculous looking things imaginable, wings floppy, heads hanging.
"Here is where the artist comes in," said Si proudly, conscious that this was himself. He straightened up the main line of the body by bending the leg wires and set the head right by hunching the neck into the shoulders. "An Owl always looks over its shoulder," he explained, but took no notice of Sam's query as to "whose shoulder he expected it to look over." He set two toes of each foot forward on the perch and two back to please Yan, who insisted that that was Owly, though Si had his doubts. He spread the tail a little by pinning it between two pieces of card (_Tl_, Fig. 10), gave it the proper slant, and now had the wings to arrange.
They were drooping like those of a clucking hen. A sharp wire of the small size was driven into the bend of each wing (_0_, Fig. 7), nailing it in effect to the body (_Ww_ and _Ww_, Fig. 10). A long pin was set in the middle of the back (_Bp_, Fig. 10), then using these with the wing wires and head wire as lashing points, Si wrapped the whole bird with the thread (Fig. 10), putting a wad of cotton here or a bit of stick there under the wrapping till he had the position and "feathering" perfect, as he put it.
"We can put in the eyes now," said he, "or later, if we soften the skin around the eye-sockets by putting wet cotton in them for twenty-four hours."
Yan had carefully copied Si's method with the second Owl, and developed unusual quickness at it.
His teacher remarked, "Wall, I larned lots o' fellows to stuff birds, but you ketch on the quickest I ever seen."
Si's ideas of perfection might differ from those of a trained taxidermist; indeed, these same Owls afforded Yan no little amusement in later years, but for the present they were an unmitigated joy.
They were just the same in position. Si knew only one; all his birds had that. But when they had dried fully, had their wrappings removed, the wires cut off flush and received the finishing glory of their wooden eyes, they were a source of joy and wonder to the whole Tribe of Indians.
XIX
The Trial of Grit
The boys had made war bonnets after the "really truly" Indian style learned from Caleb. White Turkey tail-feathers and white Goose wing-feathers dyed black at the tips made good Eagle feathers. Some wisps of red-dyed horsehair from an old harness tassel; strips of red flannel from an old shirt, and some scraps of sheepskin supplied the remaining raw material. Caleb took an increasing interest, and helped them not only to make the bonnet, but also to decide on what things should count _coup_ and what _grand coup_. Sam had a number of feathers for shooting, diving, "massacreeing the Whites," and his grand tufted feathers for felling the pine and shooting the Cat-Owl.
Among other things, Yan had counted coup for trailing. The Deer hunt had been made still more real by having the "Deer-boy" wear a pair of sandals made from old boots; on the sole of each they put two lines of hobnails in V shape, pointing forward. These made hooflike marks wherever the Deer went. One of the difficulties with the corn was that it gave no clue to the direction or doubling of the trail, but the sandals met the trouble, and with a very little corn to help they had an ideal trail. All became very expert, and could follow fast a very slight track, but Yan continued the best, for what he lacked in eyesight he more than made up in patience and observation. He already had a _grand coup_ for finding and shooting the Deer in the heart, that time, at first shot before the others came up even, and had won six other _grand coups_--one for swimming 200 yards in five minutes, one for walking four measured miles in one hour, one for running 100 yards in twelve seconds, one for knowing 100 wild plants, one for knowing 100 birds, and the one for shooting the Horned Owl.
Guy had several good _coups_, chiefly for eyesight. He could see "the papoose on the squaws back," and in the Deer hunt he had several times won _coups_ that came near being called _grand coup_, but so far fate was against him, and even old Caleb, who was partial to him, could not fairly vote him a _grand coup_.
"What is it that the Injuns most likes in a man: I mean, what would they druther have, Caleb?" asked Sappy one day, confidently expecting to have his keen eyesight praised.
"Bravery," was the reply. "They don't care what a man is if he's brave. That's their greatest thing--that is, if the feller has the stuff to back it up. An' it ain't confined to Injuns; I tell you there ain't anything that anybody goes on so much. Some men pretends to think one thing the best of all, an' some another, but come right down to it, what every man, woman an' child in the country loves an' worships is pluck, clear grit, well backed up."
"_Well, I tell you_," said Guy, boiling up with enthusiasm at this glorification of grit, "_I_ ain't scared o' nothin'."
"Wall, how'd you like to fight Yan there?"
"Oh, that ain't fair. He's older an' bigger'n I am."
"Say, Sappy, I'll give you one. Suppose you go to the orchard alone an' get a pail of cherries. All the men'll be away at nine o'clock."
"Yes, and have old Cap chaw me up."
"Thought you weren't scared of anything, an' a poor little Dog smaller than a yearling Heifer scares you."
"Well, I don't like cherries, anyhow."
"Here, now, Guy, I'll give you a real test. You see that stone?" and Caleb held up a small round stone with a hole in it. "Now, you know where old Garney is buried?"
Garney was a dissolute soldier who blew his head off, accidentally, his friends claimed, and he was buried on what was supposed to be his own land just north of Raften's, but it afterward proved to be part of the highway where a sidepath joined in, and in spite of its diggers the grave was at the _crossing of two roads_. Thus by the hand of fate Bill Garney was stamped as a suicide.
The legend was that every time a wagon went over his head he must groan, but unwilling to waste those outcries during the rumbling of the wheels, he waited till midnight and rolled them out all together. Anyone hearing should make a sympathetic reply or they would surely suffer some dreadful fate. This was the legend that Caleb called up to memory and made very impressive by being properly impressed himself.
"Now," said he, "I am going to hide this stone just behind the rock that marks the head of Garney's grave, an' I'll send you to git it some night. Air ye game?"
"Y-e-s, I'll go," said the Third War Chief without visible enthusiasm.
"If he's so keen for it now, there'll be no holding him back when night comes," remarked the Woodpecker.
"Remember, now," said Caleb, as he left them to return to his own miserable shanty, "this is the chance to show what you're made of. I'll tie a cord to the stone to make sure that you get it."
"We're just going to eat. Won't you stay and jine with us," called Sam, but Caleb strode off without taking notice of the invitation.
In the middle of the night the boys were aroused by a man's voice outside and the scratching of a stick on the canvas.
"Boys! Guy--Yan! Oh, Guy!"
"Hello! Who is it?"
"Caleb Clark! Say, Guy, it's about half-past eleven now. You have just about time to go to Garney's grave by midnight an' get that stone, and if you can't find the exact spot _you listen for the groaning _--_that'll guide you_."
This cheerful information was given in a hoarse whisper that somehow conveyed the idea that the old man was as scared as he could be.
"I--I--I--" stammered Guy, "I can't see the way."
"This is the chance of your life, boy. You get that stone and you'll get a _grand coup_ feather, top honours fur grit. I'll wait here till you come back."
"I--I--can't find the blamed old thing on such a dark night. I--I--ain't goin'."
"Errr--you're scared," whispered Caleb.
"I ain't scared, on'y what's the use of goin' when I couldn't find the place? I'll go when it's moonlight."
"Err--anybody here brave enough to go after that stone?"
"I'll go," said the other two at the same time, though with a certain air of "But I hope I don't have to, all the same."
"You kin have the honour, Yan," said the Woodpecker, with evident relief.
"Of course, I'd like the chance--but--but--I don't want to push ahead of you--you're the oldest; that wouldn't be square," was the reply.
"Guess we'd better draw straws for it."
So Sam sought a long straw while Yan stirred up the coals to a blaze. The long straw was broken in two unequal pieces and hidden in Sam's hand. Then after shuffling he held it toward Yan, showing only the two tips, and said, "Longest straw takes the job." Yan knew from old experience that a common trick was to let the shortest straw stick out farthest, so he took the other, drew it slowly out and out--it seemed endless. Sam opened his hand and showed that the short straw remained, then added with evident relief: "You got it. You are the luckiest feller I ever did see. Everything comes your way."
If there had been any loophole Yan would have taken it, but it was now clearly his duty to go for that stone. It was pride rather than courage that carried him through. He dressed quietly and nervously; his hands trembled a little as he laced his shoes. Caleb waited outside when he heard that it was Yan who was going. He braced him up by telling him: "You're the stuff. I jest love to see grit. I'll go with you to the edge of the woods--'twouldn't be fair to go farther--and wait there till you come back. It's easy to find. Go four panels of fence past the little Elm, then right across on the other side of the road is the big stone. Well, on the side next the north fence you'll find the ring pebble. The coord is lying kind o' cross the big white stone, so you'll find it easy; and here, take this chalk; if your grit gives out, you mark on the fence how far you did get, but don't you worry about that groaning--it's nothing but a yarn--don't be scairt."
"I am afraid I am scared, but still I'll go."
"That's right," said the Trapper with emphasis. "Bravery ain't so much not being scairt as going ahead when you are scairt, showing that you kin boss your fears."
So they talked till they struck out of the gloom of the trees to the comparative light of the open field.
"It's just fifteen minutes to midnight," said Caleb, looking at his watch with the light of a match, "You'll make it easy. I'll wait here."
Then Yan went on alone.
It was a somber night, but he felt his way along the field fence to the line fence and climbed that into the road that was visible as a less intense darkness on the black darkness of the grass. Yan walked on up the middle cautiously. His heart beat violently and his hands were cold. It was a still night, and once or twice little mousey sounds in the fence corner made him start, but he pushed on. Suddenly in the blackness to the right of the road he heard a loud "whisk," then he caught sight of a white thing that chilled his blood. It was the shape of a man wrapped in white, but lacked a head, just as the story had it. Yan stood frozen to the ground. Then his intellect came to the rescue of his trembling body. "What nonsense! It must be a white stone." But no, it moved. Yan had a big stick in his hand. He shouted: "Sh, sh, sh!" Again the "corpse" moved. Yan groped on the road for some stones and sent one straight at the "white thing." He heard a "whooff" and a rush. The "white thing" sprang up and ran past him with a clatter that told him he had been scared by Granny de Neuville's white-faced cow. At first the reaction made him weak at the knees, but that gave way to a better feeling. If a harmless old Cow could lie out there all night, why should he fear? He went on more quietly till he neared the rise in the road. He should soon see the little Elm. He kept to the left of the highway and peered into the gloom, going more slowly. He was not so near as he had supposed, and the tension of the early part of the expedition was coming back more than ever. He wondered if he had not passed the Elm--should he go back? But no, he could not bear the idea; that would mean retreat. Anyhow, he would put his chalk mark here to show how far he did get. He sneaked cautiously toward the fence to make it, then to his relief made out the Elm not twenty-five feet away. Once at the tree, he counted off the four panels westward and knew that he was opposite the grave of the suicide. It must now be nearly midnight. He thought he heard sounds not far away, and there across the road he saw a whitish thing--the headstone. He was greatly agitated as he crawled quietly as possible toward it. Why quietly he did not know. He stumbled through the mud of the shallow ditch at each side, reached the white stone, and groped with clammy, cold hands over the surface for the string. If Caleb had put it there it was gone now. So he took his chalk and wrote on the stone "Yan."
Oh, what a scraping that chalk made! He searched about with his fingers around the big boulder. Yes, there it was; the wind, no doubt, had blown it off. He pulled it toward him. The pebble was drawn across the boulder with another and louder rasping that sounded fearfully in the night. Then at once a gasp, a scuffle, a rush, a splash of something in mud, or water--horrible sounds of a being choking, strangling or trying to speak. For a moment Yan sank down in terror. His lips refused to move. But the remembrance of the cow came to help him. He got up and ran down the road as fast as he could go, a cold sweat on him. He ran so blindly he almost ran into a man who shouted "Ho, Yan; is that you?" It was Caleb coming to meet him. Yan could not speak. He was trembling so violently that he had to cling to the Trapper's arm.
"What was it, boy? I heard it, but what was it?"
"I--I--don't know," he gasped; "only it was at the g-g-grave."
"Gosh! I heard it, all right," and Caleb showed no little uneasiness, but added, "We'll be back in camp in ten minutes."
He took Yan's trembling hand and led him for a little while, but he was all right when he came to the blazed trail. Caleb stepped ahead, groping in the darkness.
Yan now found voice to say, "I got the stone all right, and I wrote my name on the grave, too."
"Good boy! You're the stuff!" was the admiring response.
They were very glad to see that there was a fire in the teepee when they drew near. At the edge of the clearing they gave a loud "_O-hoo_--_O-hoo_--O-hoo-oo," the Owl cry that they had adopted because it is commonly used by the Indians as a night signal, and they got the same in reply from within.
"All right," shouted Caleb; "he done it, an' he's bully good stuff and gets an uncommon _grand coup_."
"Wish I had gone now," said Guy. "I could 'a' done it just as well as Yan."
"Well, go on now."
"Oh, there ain't any stone to get now for proof."
"You can write your name on the grave, as I did."
"Ah, that wouldn't prove nothin'," and Guy dropped the subject.
Yan did not mean to tell his adventure that night, but his excitement was evident, and they soon got it out of him in full. They were a weird-looking crowd as they sat around the flickering fire, experiencing as he told it no small measure of the scare he had just been through.
When he had finished Yan said, "Now, Guy, don't you want to go and try it?"
"Oh, quit," said Guy; "I never saw such a feller as you for yammering away on the same subjek."
Caleb looked at his watch now, as though about to leave, when Yan said:
"Say, Mr. Clark, won't you sleep here? There's lots o' room in Guy's bed."
"Don't mind if I do, seem' it's late."
XX
The White Revolver
In the morning Caleb had the satisfaction of eating a breakfast prepared by the son of his enemy, for Sam was cook that day.
The Great Woodpecker expressed the thought of the whole assembly when after breakfast he said: "Now I want to go and see that grave. I believe Yan wrote his name on some old cow that was lying down and she didn't like it and said so out loud!"
They arrived at the spot in a few minutes. Yes, there it was plainly written on the rude gravestone, rather shaky, but perfectly legible--"Yan."
"Pretty poor writing," was Guy's remark.
"Well, you sure done it! Good boy!" said Sam warmly. "Don't believe I'd 'a' had the grit."
"Bet I would," said Guy.
"Here's where I crossed the ditch. See my trail in the mud? Out there is where I heard the yelling. Let's see if ghosts make tracks. Hallo, what the--"
There were the tracks in the mud of a big man. He had sprawled, falling on his hands and knees. Here was the print of his hands several times, and in the mud, half hidden, something shining--Guy saw it first and picked it up. It was a white-handled Colt's revolver.
"Let's see that," said Caleb. He wiped off the mud. His eye kindled. "That's my revolver that was stole from me 'way back, time I lost my clothes and money." He looked it over and, glancing about, seemed lost in thought. "This beats me!" He shook his head and muttered from time to time, "This beats me!" There seemed nothing more of interest to see, so the boys turned homeward.
On the way back Caleb was evidently thinking hard. He walked in silence till they got opposite Granny de Neuville's shanty, which was the nearest one to the grave. At the gate he turned and said: "Guess I'm going in here. Say, Yan, you didn't do any of that hollering last night, did you?"
"No, sir; not a word. The only sound I made was dragging the ring-stone over the boulder."
"Well, I'll see you at camp," he said, and turned in to Granny's.
"The tap o' the marnin' to ye, an' may yer sowl rest in pace," was the cheery old woman's greeting. "Come in--come in, Caleb, an' set down. An' how is Saryann an' Dick?"
"They seem happy an' prosperin'," said the old man with bitterness. "Say, Granny, did you ever hear the story about Garney's grave out there on the road?"
"For the love av goodness, an' how is it yer after askin' me that now? Sure an' I heard the story many a time, an' I'm after hearin' the ghost last night, an' it's a-shiverin' yit Oi am."
"What did you hear, Granny?"
"Och, an' it was the most divilish yells iver let out av a soul in hell. Shure the Dog and the Cat both av thim was scairt, and the owld white-faced cow come a-runnin' an' jumped the bars to get aff av the road."
Here was what Caleb wanted, and he kept her going by his evident interest. After she tired of providing more realistic details of the night's uproar, Caleb deliberately tapped another vintage of tittle-tattle in hope of further information leaking out.
"Granny, did you hear of a robbery last week down this side of Downey's Dump?"
"Shure an' I did not," she exclaimed, her eyes ablaze with interest--neither had Caleb, for that matter; but he wanted to start the subject--"An" who was it was robbed?"
"Don't know, unless it was John Evans's place."
"Shure an' I don't know him, but I warrant he could sthand to lose. Shure an' it's when the raskils come after me an' Cal Conner the moment it was talked around that we had sold our Cow; then sez I, it's gittin' onraisonable, an' them divils shorely seems to know whin a wad o' money passes."
"That's the gospel truth. But when wuz you robbed, Granny?"
"Robbed? I didn't say I wuz robbed," and she cackled. "But the robbers had the best av intintions when they came to me," and she related at length her experience with the two who broke in when her Cow was reported sold. She laughed over their enjoyment of the Lung Balm, and briefly told how the big man was sulky and the short, broad one was funny. Their black beards, the "big wan" with his wounded head, his left-handedness and his accidental exposure of the three fingers of the right hand, all were fully talked over.
"When was it, Granny?"
"Och, shure an' it wuz about three years apast."
Then after having had his lungs treated, old Caleb left Granny and set out to do some very hard thinking.
There had been robberies all around for the last four years; There was no clue but this: They were all of the same character; nothing but cash was taken, and the burglars seemed to have inside knowledge of the neighbourhood, and timed all their visits to happen just after the householder had come into possession of a roll of bills.
As soon as Caleb turned in at the de Neuville gate, Yan, acting on a belated thought, said:
"Boys, you go on to camp; I'll be after you in five minutes." He wanted to draw those tracks in the mud and try to trail that man, so went back to the grave.
He studied the marks most carefully and by opening out the book he was able to draw the boot tracks life-size, noting that each had three rows of small hobnails on the heel, apparently put in at home because so irregular, while the sole of the left was worn into a hole. Then he studied the hand tracks, selected the clearest, and was drawing the right hand when something odd caught his attention.
Yes! It appeared in all the impressions of that hand--the middle finger was gone.
[Illustration: The three-fingered hand-print]
Yan followed the track on the road a little way, but at the corner it turned southward and was lost in the grass.
As he was going back to camp he overtook Caleb also returning.
"Mr. Clark," he said. "I went back to sketch those tracks, and do you know--that man had only three fingers on his right hand?"
"Consarn me!" said Caleb. "Are you sure?"
"Come and see for yourself."
Yes! It surely was true, and Caleb on the road back said, "Yan, don't say a word of this to the others just now."
The old Trapper went to the Pogue house at once. He found the tracks repeated in the dust near the door, but they certainly were not made by Dick. On a line was a pair of muddy trousers drying.
From this night Yan went up and Guy went down in the old man's opinion, for he spoke his own mind that day when he gave first place to grit. He invited Yan to come to his shanty to see a pair of snow-shoes he was making. The invitation was vague and general, so the whole Tribe accepted. Yan had not been there since his first visit. The first part of their call was as before. In answer to their knock there was a loud baying from the Hound, then a voice ordering him back. Caleb opened the door, but now said "Step in." If he was displeased with the others coming he kept it to himself. While Yan was looking at the snow-shoes Guy discovered something much more interesting on the old man's bunk; that was the white revolver, now cleaned up and in perfect order. Caleb's delight at its recovery, though not very apparent, was boundless. He had not been able to buy himself another, and this was as warmly welcomed back as though a long-lost only child.
"Say, Caleb, let's try a shot. I bet I kin beat the hull gang," exclaimed Sapwood.
Caleb got some cartridges and pointed to a white blaze on a stump forty yards away. Guy had three or four shots and Yan had the same without hitting the stump. Then Caleb said, "Lemme show you."
His big rugged hand seemed to swallow up the little gun-stock. His long knobbed finger fitted around the lock in a strange but familiar way. Caleb was a bent-arm shot, and the short barrel looked like his own forefinger pointing at the target as he pumped away six times in quick succession. All went into the blaze and two into the charcoal spot that marked the centre.
"By George! Look at that for shooting!" and the boys were loud in their praise.
"Well, twenty year ago I used to be a pretty good shot," Caleb proceeded to explain with an air of unnecessary humility and a very genial expression on his face. "But that's dead easy. I'll show you some real tricks."
Twenty-five feet away he set up three cartridges in a row, their caps toward him, and exploded them in succession with three rapid shots. Then he put the revolver in the side pocket of his coat, and recklessly firing it without drawing, much less sighting or even showing it, he peppered a white blaze at twenty yards. Finally he looked around for an old fruit tin. Then he cocked the revolver, laid it across his right hand next the thumb and the tin across the fingers. He then threw them both in the air with a jerk that sent the revolver up ten feet and the tin twenty. As the revolver came down he seized it and shot a hole through the tin before it could reach the ground.
The boys were simply dumbfounded. They had used up all their exclamations on the first simple target trial.
Caleb stepped into the shanty to get a cleaning-rag for his darling, and Sam burst out:
"Well, now I know he never shot at Da, for if he did he'd 'a' got him sure."
It was not meant for Caleb's ears, but it reached him, and the old Trapper came to the door at once with a long, expressive "H-m-m-mrr."
Thus was broken the dam of silent scorn, for it was the first time Caleb had addressed himself to Sam. The flood had forced the barrier, but it still left plenty of stuff in the channel to be washed away by time and wear, and it was long before he talked to Sam as freely as to the others, but still in time he learned.
There was an air of geniality on all now, and Yan took advantage of this to ask for something he had long kept in mind.
"Mr. Clark, will you take us out for a Coon hunt? We know where there are lots of Coons that feed in a corn patch up the creek."
If Yan had asked this a month ago he would have got a contemptuous refusal. Before the visit to Carney's grave it might have been, "Oh, I dunno--I ain't got time," but he was on the right side of Caleb now, and the answer was:
"Well, yes! Don't mind if I do, first night it's coolish, so the Dog kin run."
[Illustration: Raccoon in tree]
XXI
The Triumph Of Guy
The boys had hunted the Woodchuck quite regularly since first meeting it. Their programme was much the same--each morning about nine or ten they would sneak out to the clover field. It was usually Guy who first discovered the old Grizzly, then all would fire a harmless shot, the Woodchuck would scramble into his den and the incident be closed for the day. This became as much a part of the day's routine as getting breakfast, and much more so than the washing of the dishes. Once or twice the old Grizzly had narrow escapes, but so far he was none the worse, rather the better, being wiser. The boys, on the other hand, gained nothing, with the possible exception of Guy. Always quick-sighted, his little washed-out optics developed a marvellous keenness. At first it was as often Yan or Sam who saw the old Grizzly, but later it was always Guy.
One morning Sam approached the game from one point, Guy and Yan from another some yards away. "No Woodchuck!" was the first opinion, but suddenly Guy called "I see him." There in a little hollow fully sixty yards from his den, and nearly a hundred from the boys, concealed in a bunch of clover, Guy saw a patch of gray fur hardly two inches square. "That's him, sure."
Yan could not see it at all. Sam saw but doubted. An instant later the Woodchuck (for it was he) stood up on his hind legs, raised his chestnut breast above the clover, and settled all doubt.
"By George!" exclaimed Yan in admiration. "_That is great_. You have the most wonderful eyes I ever did see. Your name ought to be 'Hawkeye'--that should be your name."
"All right," shrilled out Guy enthusiastically. "Will you--will you, Sam, will you call me Hawkeye? I think you ought to," he added pleadingly.
"I think so, Sam," said the Second Chief. "He's turned out great stuff, an' it's regular Injun."
"We'll have to call a Council and settle that. Now let's to business."
"Say, Sapwood, you're so smart, couldn't you go round through the woods to your side and crawl through the clover so as get between the old Grizzly and his den?" suggested the Head Chief.
"I bet I can, an' I'll bet a dollar--"
"Here, now," said Yan, "Injuns don't have dollars."
"Well, I'll bet my scalp--my black scalp, I mean--against Sam's that I kill the old Grizzly first."
"Oh, let me do it first--you do it second," said Sam imploringly.
"Errr--yer scared of yer scalp."
"I'll go you," said Sam.
Each of the boys had a piece of black horsehair that he called his scalp. It was tied with a string to the top of his head--and this was what Guy wished to wager.
Yan now interfered: "Quit your squabbling, you Great War Chiefs, an' 'tend to business. If Woodpecker kills old Grizzly he takes Sapwood's scalp; if Sappy kills him he takes the Woodpecker's scalp, an' the winner gets a grand feather, too."
Sam and Yan waited impatiently in the woods while Guy sneaked around. The Woodchuck seemed unusually bold this day. He wandered far from his den and got out of sight in hollows at times. The boys saw Guy crawl through the fence, though the Woodchuck did not. The fact was, that he had always had the enemy approach him from the other side, and was not watching eastward.
Guy, flat on his breast, worked his way through the clover. He crawled about thirty yards and now was between the Woodchuck and his den. Still old Grizzly kept on stuffing himself with clover and watching toward the Raften woods. The boys became intensely excited. Guy could see them, but not the Woodchuck. They pointed and gesticulated. Guy thought that meant "Now shoot." He got up cautiously. The Woodchuck saw him and bounded straight for its den--that is, toward Guy. Guy fired wildly. The arrow went ten feet over the Grizzly's head, and, that "huge, shaking mass of fur" bounding straight at him, struck terror to his soul. He backed up hastily, not knowing where to run. He was close to the den.
The Woodchuck chattered his teeth and plunged to get by the boy, each as scared as could be. Guy gave a leap of terror and fell heavily just as the Woodchuck would have passed under him and home. But the boy weighed nearly 100 pounds, and all that weight came with crushing force on old Grizzly, knocking the breath out of his body. Guy scrambled to his feet to run for his life, but he saw the Woodchuck lying squirming, and plucked up courage enough to give him a couple of kicks on the nose that settled him. A loud yell from the other two boys was the first thing that assured Guy of his victory. They came running over and found him standing like the hunter in an amateur photograph, holding his bow in one hand and the big Woodchuck by the tail in the other.
[Illustration: The hunter]
"Now, I guess you fellers will come to me to larn you how to kill Woodchucks. Ain't he an old socker? I bet he weighs fifty pounds--yes, near sixty." (It weighed about ten pounds.)
"Good boy! Bully boy! Hooray for the Third War Chief! Hooray for Chief Sapwood!" and Guy had no cause to complain of lack of appreciation on the part of the others.
He swelled out his chest and looked proud and haughty. "Wished I knew where there was some more Woodchucks," he said. "_I_ know how to get them, if the rest don't."
"Well, that should count for a _grand coup_, Sappy."
[Illustration: "Guy gave a leap of terror and fell."]
"You tole me you wuz goin' to call me 'Hawkeye' after this morning."
"We'll have to have a Grand Council to fix that up," replied the Head Chief.
"All right; let's have it this afternoon, will you?"
"All right."
"'Bout four o'clock?"
"Why, yes; any time."
"And you'll fix me up as 'Hawkeye,' and give me a dandy Eagle feather for killing the Woodchuck, at four o'clock?"
"Yes, sure, only, why do you want it at four o'clock?"
But Guy seemed not to hear, and right away after dinner he disappeared.
"He's dodging the dishwashing again," suggested the Woodpecker.
"No, he isn't," said the Second Chief. "I believe he's going to bring his folks to see him in his triumph."
"That's so. Let's chip right in and make it an everlasting old blowout--kind of a new date in history. You'll hear me lie like sixty to help him out."
"Good enough. I'm with you. You go and get your folks. I'll go after old Caleb, and we'll fix it up to call him 'Hawkeye' and give him his _grand coup_ feather all at once."
"'Feard my folks and Caleb wouldn't mix," replied Sam, "but I believe for a splurge like this Guy'd ruther have my folks. You see, Da has the mortgage on their place."
So it was agreed Sam was to go for his mother, while Yan was to prepare the Eagle feather and skin the Woodchuck.
It was not "as big as a bear," but it was a very large Woodchuck, and Yan was as much elated over the victory as any of them. He still had an hour or more before four o'clock, and eager to make Guy's triumph as Indian as possible, he cut off all the Woodchuck's claws, then strung them on a string, with a peeled and pithed Elder twig an inch long between each two. Some of the claws were very, very small, but the intention was there to make a Grizzly-claw necklace.
Guy made for home as fast as he could go. His father hailed him as he neared the garden and evidently had plans of servitude, but Guy darted into the dining-room-living-room-bedroom-kitchen-room, which constituted nine-tenths of the house.
"Oh, Maw, you just ought to seen me; you just want to come this afternoon--I'm the Jim Dandy of the hull Tribe, an they're going to make me Head Chief. I killed that whaling old Woodchuck that pooty nigh killed Paw. They couldn't do a thing without me--them fellers in camp. They tried an' tried more'n a thousand times to get that old Woodchuck--yes, I bet they tried a million times, an' I just waited till they was tired and give up, then I says, 'Now, I'll show you how.' First I had to point him out. Them fellers is no good to see things. Then I says, 'Now, Sam and Yan, you fellers stay here, an' just to show how easy it is when you know how, I'll leave all my bosenarrers behind an' go with nothing.' Wall, there they stood an' watched me, an' I s-n-e-a-k-e-d round the fence an' c-r-a-w-l-e-d in the clover just like an Injun till I got between him an' his hole, and then I hollers and he come a-snortin' an' a-chatterin' his teeth at me to chaw me up, for he seen I had no stick nor nothin', an' I never turned a hair; I kep' cool an' waited till jest as he was going to jump for my throat, then I turned and gave him one kick on the snoot that sent him fifty feet in the air, an' when he come down he was deader'n Kilsey's hen when she was stuffed with onions. Oh, Maw, I'm just the bully boy; they can't do nothin' in camp 'thout me. I had to larn 'em to hunt Deer an' see things--an'--an'--an'--lots o' things, so they are goin' to make me Head Chief of the hull Tribe, an' call me 'Hawkeye,' too; that's the way the Injuns does. It's to be at four o'clock this afternoon, an' you got to come."
Burns scoffed at the whole thing and told Guy to get to work at the potatoes, and if he left down the bars so that the Pig got out he'd skin him alive; he would have no such fooling round his place. But Mrs Burns calmly informed him that _she_ was going. It was to her much like going to see a university degree conferred on her boy.
Since Burns would not assist, the difficulty of the children now arose. This, however, was soon settled. They should go along. It was two hours' toil for the mother to turn the four brown-limbed, nearly naked, dirty, happy towsle-tops into four little martyrs, befrocked, beribboned, becombed and be-booted. Then they all straggled across the field, Mrs. Burns carrying the baby in one arm and a pot of jam in the other. Guy ran ahead to show the way, and four-year-old, three-year-old and two-year-old, hand in hand, formed a diagonal line in the wake of the mother.
They were just a little surprised on getting to camp to find Mrs. Raften and Minnie there in holiday clothes. Marget's first feeling was resentment, but her second thought was a pleasant one. That "stuck-up" woman, the enemy's wife, should see her boy's triumph, and Mrs. Burns at once seized on the chance to play society cat.
"How do ye do, Mrs. Raften; hope you're well," she said with a tinge of malicious pleasure and a grand attempt at assuming the leadership.
"Quite well, thank you. We came down to see how the boys were getting on in camp."
"They've got on very nicely _sense my boy j'ined them_," retorted Mrs. Burns, still fencing.
"So I understand; the other two have become very fond of him," returned Mrs. Raften, seeking to disarm her enemy.
This speech had its effect. Mrs. Burns aimed only to forestall the foe, but finding to her surprise that the enemy's wife was quite gentle, a truce was made, and by the time Mrs. Raften had petted and praised the four tow-tops and lauded Guy to the utmost the air of latent battle was replaced by one of cordiality.
The boys now had everything ready for the grand ceremony. On the Calfskin rug at one end was the Council; Guy, seated on the skin of the Woodchuck and nearly hiding it from view, Sam on his left hand and Yan with the drum, on his right. In the middle the Council fire blazed. To give air, the teepee cover was raised on the shady side and the circle of visitors was partly in the teepee and partly out.
The Great War Chief first lighted the peace pipe, puffed for a minute, then blew off the four smokes to the four winds and handed it to the Second and Third War Chiefs, who did the same.
Little Beaver gave three thumps on the drum for silence, and the Great Woodpecker rose up:
"Big Chiefs, Little Chiefs, Braves, Warriors, Councillors, Squaws, and Papooses of the Sanger Indians: When our Tribe was at war with them--them--them--other Injuns--them Birchbarks, we took prisoner one of their warriors and tortured him to death two or three times, and he showed such unusual stuff that we took him into our Tribe--"
Loud cries of "How--How--How," led by Yan.
"We gave a sun-dance for his benefit, but he didn't brown--seemed too green--so we called him Sapwood. From that time he has fought his way up from the ranks and got to be Third War Chief--"
"How--How--How."
"The other day the hull Tribe j'ined to attack an' capture a big Grizzly and was licked bad, when the War Chief Sapwood came to the rescue an' settled the owld baste with one kick on the snoot. Deeds like this is touching. A feller that kin kick like that didn't orter be called Sapwood nor Saphead nor Sapanything. No, sirree! It ain't right. He's the littlest Warrior among the War Chiefs, but he kin see farder an' do it oftener an' better than his betters. He kin see round a corner or through a tree. 'Cept maybe at night, he's the swell seer of the outfit, an' the Council has voted to call him 'Hawkeye.'"
"How--How--How--How--How--"
Here Little Beaver handed the Head War Chief a flat white stick on which was written in large letters "Sapwood."
"Here's the name he went by before he was great an' famous, an' this is the last of it." The Chief put the stick in the fire, saying, "Now let us see if you're too green to burn." Little Beaver then handed Woodpecker a fine Eagle feather, red-tufted, and bearing in outline a man with a Hawk's head and an arrow from his eye. "This here's a swagger Eagle feather for the brave deed he done, and tells about him being Hawkeye, too" (the feather was stuck in Guy's hair and the claw necklace put about his neck amid loud cries of "How--How--" and thumps of the drum), "and after this, any feller that calls him Sapwood has to double up and give Hawkeye a free kick."
There was a great chorus of "How--How." Guy tried hard to look dignified and not grin, but it got beyond him. He was smiling right across and half way round. His mother beamed with pride till her eyes got moist and overflowed.
Every one thought the ceremony was over, but Yan stood up and began: "There is something that has been forgotten, Chiefs, Squaws and Pappooses of the Sanger Nation: When we went out after this Grizzly I was witness to a bargain between two of the War Chiefs. According to a custom of our Tribe, they bet their scalps, each that he would be the one to kill the Grizzly. The Head Chief Woodpecker was one and Hawkeye was the other. Hawkeye, you can help yourself to Woodpecker's scalp."
Sam had forgotten about this, but he bowed his head. Guy cut the string, and holding up the scalp, he uttered a loud, horrible war-whoop which every one helped with some sort of noise. It was the crowning event. Mrs. Burns actually wept for joy to see her heroic boy properly recognized at last.
Then she went over to Sam and said, "Did you bring your folks here to see my boy get praised?"
Sam nodded and twinkled an eye.
"Well, I don't care who ye are, Raften or no Raften, you got a good heart, an' it's in the right place. I never did hold with them as says 'There ain't no good in a Raften.' I always hold there's some good in every human. I know your Paw _did_ buy the mortgage on our place, but I never did believe your Maw stole our Geese, _an' I never will_, an' next time I hear them runnin' on the Raftens I'll jest open out an' tell what I know."
[Illustration: The picture on the Teepee Lining, to record Guy's Exploit.]
XXII
The Coon Hunt
Yan did not forget the proposed Coon hunt--in fact, he was most impatient for it, and within two days the boys came to Caleb about sundown and reminded him of his promise. It was a sultry night, but Yan was sure it was just right for a Coon hunt, and his enthusiasm carried all before it. Caleb was quietly amused at the "_cool night_" selected, but reckoned it would be "better later."
"Set down--set down, boys," he said, seeing them standing ready for an immediate start. "There's no hurry. Coons won't be running for three or four hours after sundown."
So he sat and smoked, while Sam vainly tried to get acquainted with old Turk; Yan made notes on some bird wings nailed to the wall, and Guy got out the latest improved edition of his exploits in Deer-hunting and Woodchuck killing, as well as enlarged on his plans for gloriously routing any Coon they might encounter.
By insisting that it would take an hour to get to the place, Yan got them started at nine o'clock, Caleb, on a suggestion from Guy, carrying a small axe. Keeping old Turk well in hand, they took the highway, and for half an hour tramped on toward the "Corners." Led by Sam, they climbed a fence crossed a potato field, and reached the corn patch by the stream.
"Go ahead, Turk. Sic him! Sic him! Sic him!" and the company sat in a row on the fence to await developments.
Turk was somewhat of a character. He hunted what he pleased and when he pleased. His master could bring him on the Coon grounds, but he couldn't make him hunt Coon nor anything else unless it suited his own fancy. Caleb had warned the boys to be still, and they sat along the fence in dead silence, awaiting the summons from the old Hound. He had gone off beating and sniffing among the cornstalks. His steps sounded very loud and his sniffs like puffs of steam. It was a time of tense attention; but the Hound wandered, farther away, and even his noisy steps were lost.
They had sat for two long minutes, when a low yelp from a distant part of the field, then a loud "_bow-wow"_ from the Hound, set Yan's heart jumping.
"Game afoot," said Sam in a low voice.
"Bet I heered him first," piped Guy.
Yan's first thought was to rush pell-mell after the Dog. He had often read of the hunt following furiously the baying of the Hounds, but Caleb restrained him.
"Hold on, boy; plenty of time. Don't know yet what it is."
For Turk, like most frontier Hounds, would run almost any trail--had even been accused of running on his own--and it rested with those who knew him best to discover from his peculiar style of tonguing just what the game might be. But they waited long and patiently without getting another bay from the Hound. Presently a rustling was heard and Turk came up to his master and lay down at his feet.
"Go ahead, Turk, put him up," but the Dog stirred not. "Go ahead," and Caleb gave him a rap with a small stick. The Dog dodged away, but lay down again, panting.
"What was it, Mr. Clark?" demanded Yan.
"Don't hardly know. Maybe he only spiked himself on a snag. But this is sure; there's no Coons here to-night. There won't be after this. We come too early, and it's too hot for the Dog, anyway."
"We could cross the creek and go into Boyle's bush," suggested the Woodpecker. "We're like to strike anything there. Larry de Neuville swears he saw a Unicorn there the night he came back from Garney's wake."
"How can you tell the kind of game by the Dog's barking?" asked Yan.
"H-m!" answered Caleb, as he put a fresh quid in his lantern jaw. "You surely can if you know the country an' the game an' the Dog. Course, no two Dogs is alike; you got to study your Dog, an' if he's good he'll larn you lots about trailing."
The brook was nearly dry now, so they crossed where they would. Then feeling their way through the dark woods with eyes for the most part closed, they groped toward Boyle's open field, then across it to the heavy timber. Turk had left them at the brook, and, following its course till he came to a pool, had had a bath. As they entered the timber tract he joined them, dripping wet and ready for business.
"Go ahead, Turk," and again all sat down to await the opinion of the expert.
It came quickly. The old Hound, after circling about in a way that seemed to prove him independent of daylight, began to sniff loudly, and gave a low whine. He followed a little farther, and now his tail was heard to '_tap, tap, tap_' the brush as he went through a dry thicket.
"Hear that? He's got something this time," said Caleb in a low voice. "Wait a little."
The Hound was already working out a puzzle, and when at last he got far enough to be sure, he gave a short bark. There was another spell of sniffing, then another bark, then several little barks at intervals, and at last a short bay; then the baying recommenced, but was irregular and not full-chested. The sounds told that the Hound was running in a circle about the forest, but at length ceased moving, for all the barking was at one place. When the hunters got there they found the Dog half-way in a hole under a stump, barking and scratching.
"Humph," said Caleb; "nothing but a Cottontail. Might 'a' knowed that by the light scent an' the circling without treeing."
So Turk was called off and the company groped through the inky woods in quest of more adventures.
"There's a kind of swampy pond down the lower end of the bush--a likely place for Coons on a Frog-hunt," suggested the Woodpecker.
So the Hound was again "turned on" near the pond. The dry woods were poor for scent, but the damp margin of the marsh proved good, and Turk became keenly interested and very sniffy. A preliminary "_Woof!_" was followed by one or two yelps and then a full-chested "_Boooow!"_ that left no doubt he had struck a hot trail at last. Oh, what wonderfully thrilling horn-blasts those were! Yan for the first time realized the power of the "full cry," whose praises are so often sung.
The hunters sat down to await the result, for, as Caleb pointed out, there was "no saying where the critter might run."
The Hound bayed his fullest, roundest notes at quick intervals, but did not circle. The sound of his voice told them that the chase was straight away, out of the woods, easterly across an open field, and at a hot pace, with regular, full bellowing, unbroken by turn or doubt.
"I believe he's after the old Callaghan Fox," said the Trapper. "They've tried it together before now, an' there ain't anything but a Fox will run so straight and fetch such a tune out of Turk."
The baying finally was lost in the distance, probably a mile away, but there was nothing for it but to wait. If Turk had been a full-bred and trained Foxhound he would have stuck to that trail all night, but in half an hour he returned, puffing and hot, to throw himself into the shallow pond.
"Everything scared away now," remarked Caleb. "We might try the other side of the pond." Once or twice the dog became interested, but decided that there was nothing in it, and returned to pant by his master's feet.
They had now travelled so far toward home that a very short cut across fields would bring them into their own woods.
The moon arose as they got there, and after their long groping in the murky darkness this made the night seem very bright and clear.
They had crossed the brook below Granny de Neuville's, and were following the old timber trail that went near the stream, when Turk stopped to sniff, ran back and forth two or three times, then stirred the echoes with a full-toned bugle blast and led toward the water.
"_Bow--bow--bow--bow_," he bawled for forty yards and came to a stop. The baying was exactly the same that he gave on the Fox trail, but the course of the animal was crooked, and now there was a break.
They could hear the dog beating about close at hand and far away, but silent so far as tongue was concerned.
"What is it, Caleb?" said Sam with calm assurance, forgetting how recent was their acquaintance.
"Dunno," was the short reply.
"'Tisn't a Fox, is it?" asked Yan.
But a sudden renewal of "_Bow--bow--bow--_" from the Hound one hundred yards away, at the fence, ended all discussion. The dog had the hot trail again. The break had been along the line of a fence that showed, as Caleb said, "It was a Coon, 'cept it might be some old house Cat maybe; them was the only things that would run along top of a fence in the night time."
It was easy to follow now; the moonlight was good, and the baying of the Hound was loud and regular. It led right down the creek, crossing several pools and swamps.
"That settles it," remarked the Trapper decisively. "Cats don't take to the water. That's a Coon," and as they hurried they heard a sudden change in the dog's note, no longer a deep rich '_B-o-o-w-w_.' It became an outrageous clamour of mingled yelps, growls and barks.
"Ha--heh. That means he's right on it. That is what he does when he _sees_ the critter."
But the "view halloo" was quickly dropped and the tonguing of the dog was now in short, high-pitched yelps _at one place_.
"Jest so! He's treed! That's a Coon, all right!" and Caleb led straight for the place.
The Hound was barking and leaping against a big Basswood, and Caleb's comment was: "Hm, never knowed a Coon to do any other way--always gets up the highest and tarnalest tree to climb in the hull bush. Now who's the best climber here?"
"Yan is," volunteered Sam.
"Kin ye do it, Yan?"
"I'll try."
"Guess we'll make a fire first and see if we can't see him," said the Woodpecker.
"If it was a Woodchuck I'd soon get him for you," chimed in Hawkeye, but no one heeded.
Sam and Yan gathered stuff and soon had a flood of flickering red light on all the surrounding trees. They scanned the big Basswood without getting sight of their quarry. Caleb took a torch and found on the bark some fresh mud. By going back on the trail to where it had crossed the brook they found the footprint--undoubtedly that of a large Coon.
"Reckon he's in some hollow; he's surely up that tree, and Basswood's are always hollow."
Yan now looked at the large trunk in doubt as to whether he could manage it.
Caleb remarked his perplexity and said: "Yes; that's so. You ain't fifteen foot spread across the wings, are you? But hold on--"
He walked to a tall thin tree near at hand, cut it through with the axe in a few minutes, and threw it so as to rest against the lowest branch of the big Basswood. Up this Yan easily swarmed, carrying a stout Elm stick tied behind. When he got to the great Basswood he felt lost in the green mass, but the boys below carried torches so as to shed light on each part in turn. At first Yan found neither hole in the trunk nor Coon, but after long search in the upper branches he saw a great ball of fur on a high crotch and in it two glowing eyes that gave him a thrill. He yelled: "Here he is! Look out below." He climbed up nearer and tried to push the Coon off, but it braced itself firmly and defied him until he climbed above it, when it leaped and scrambled to a lower branch.
Yan followed it, while his companions below got greatly excited, as they could see nothing, and only judged by the growling and snarling that Yan and the Coon were fighting. After another passage at arms the Coon left the second crotch and scrambled down the trunk till it reached the leaning sapling, and there perched, glaring at the hunters below. The old Hound raised a howl when he saw the quarry, and Caleb, stepping to one side, drew his revolver and fired. The Coon fell dead into their midst. Turk sprang to do battle, but he was not needed, and Caleb fondly and proudly wiped the old white pistol as though it alone were to be thanked for the clever shot.
Yan came down quickly, though he found it harder to get down than up. He hurried excitedly into the ring and stroked the Coon with a mixture of feelings--admiring its fur--sorry, after all, that it was killed, and triumphant that he had led the way. _It was his Coon_, and all admitted that. Sam "hefted" it by one leg and said, "Weighs thirty pounds, I bet."
Guy said: "Pooh! Tain't half as big as that there big Woodchuck I killed, an' you never would have got him if I hadn't thought of the axe."
Yan thought it would weigh thirty-five pounds. Caleb guessed it at twenty-five (and afterward they found out that it barely weighed eighteen). While they were thus talking the Dog broke into an angry barking such as he gave for strangers--his "human voice," Caleb called it--and at once there stepped into the circle William Raften. He had seen the lights in the woods, and, dreading a fire at this dry season, had dressed and come out.
"Hello, Da; why ain't you in bed, where you ought to be?"
Raften took no notice of his son, but said sneeringly to Caleb: "Ye ain't out trying to get another shot at me, air ye?" 'Tain't worth your while; I hain't got no cash on me to-night."
"Now see here, Da," said Sam, interrupting before Caleb could answer, "you don't play fair. I know, an' you ought to know, that's all rot about Caleb shooting at you. If he had, he'd 'a' got you sure. I've seen him shoot."
"Not when he was drunk."
"Last time I was drunk we was in it together," said Caleb fiercely, finding his voice.
"Purty good for a man as swore he had no revolver," and Raften pointed t