Chapter 31
This was greeted with a shout, and committee number one, self-appointed, started for the baskets. Others arranged the table with boards and rocks put outside the cave door. The eatables were soon temptingly arranged. The jug of coffee and bottle of milk, with rubber mugs, were placed under Arthur's care; and he soon had as much as he could do to pour the refreshing draughts.
The girls had little to do, the boys doing the honors in fine style. Very merry they grew over the good things; and so intent were they trying to sell the last at auction, that they never noticed a large cloud that had overspread the sky, until a few drops of rain fell upon the table.
"Here's a pretty go!" said Fred. "Run, Miss Walters; and, girls, get into the cave, and we'll clear the tables."
Busy hands quickly disposed of all the articles to be kept dry, and the boys were glad to get into the friendly shelter. Down came the rain, heavily rolled the thunder, and for a little while the lightning was vivid. Soon the rain began to find its way into the cave.
"This will not do. Where's the table, Fred? We must have up a storm door," said Phil.
"All ready to slide right up," said Fred. "Arthur, will you get the chandelier ready? for it will be rather dark when the door is up."
Arthur crept on his hands and knees to a little crevice in the inner part of the cave, and drew out a tin box, with four holes in the cover. The girls gathered around, and were much amused to see him take out his four candles. These he stuck into the holes of the box; and lighting them, he placed them on a shelf prepared expressly for the occasion.
Never were boys and girls more happy. They were enjoying excitement without danger or discomfort. They sang, played games; and when the rain had nearly ceased, some of the boys ran out and lighted the fire. They had kept the wood dry. Then turning the table on its side, they put out the candles, and had the full benefit of the fire-light. For a while conundrums were the order of the day; then they drew lots to determine who should tell the first story. It fell to Millie Gray, who, with timid modesty, demurred; but the penalty threatened for default was so great, that though she had never told a story in her life, she thought she had better begin now. Attentively they listened, waiting for her to begin. Presently she commenced.
"There was, once upon a time, a beautiful little girl, with blue eyes and golden hair."
"O," interrupted Fred, "can't we have this one with black eyes and red hair, or brown eyes; I'm tired of blue eyes and yellow hair."
"No, no, no," said Arthur; "I like blue eyes. Go on, Millie." With a blush--for her own were blue, and she knew what Arthur meant--she continued.
"Well, I like to oblige all parties," replied Millie. "Suppose we say her eyes were black and blue; but if any one else interrupts, I'll have them committed for contempt of court, and they shall be bound over to keep the peace."
"Which piece?" Fred was beginning to say, when Arthur jumped up and placed his hand over Fred's mouth, saying, "Consider yourself bound over, sir."
"Well, this little girl lived in a deep forest, in a little bit of a house, with no one for company but her grandmother and a little yellow dog.
"The grandmother was just as cross as she could be, and poor little--let's see, what shall I call her?"
"Odahbeetoqua," suggested Fred. "I suppose she was descended from the Indians."
"Yes," said Millie, very seriously, "that was her name; but nobody called her by it all at one time; they said Daisy, for short.
"Well, one day little Daisy felt so sad and lonely, and her grandmother had been so cross, that she said to the little yellow dog,--
"'Tip, let's run away. I'm tired of staying here. Granny is so cross, I cannot stand it another minute.'
"'Yes, indeed. I'll go with you, Daisy,' said Tip, wagging his tail; 'for this morning, when I was licking up a bit of butter off the floor, she kicked me, and hit me over the head with a broom, and threw a stick of wood after me as I indignantly left the premises, and wounded my feelings very much.'
"'But then, Tip, suppose we should get lost in the woods, and die of starvation, and bears should eat us up.'
"'Trust to me, Daisy,' Tip replied. 'I will lead you safely out of the wood, and see that nothing hurts you.'
"Just then a woman came to the door, and said, 'I have heard your conversation. Come with me, and you shall both live in a nice house, where you can play all day, and have fine clothes, and plenty to eat.'
"'Ah, wouldn't that be pleasant!' said Daisy; and she was just preparing to go with the woman, when she stopped suddenly, and said, 'But who will get wood for granny's fire? and who will pick berries for her? She'd die if we should leave her alone. No, I can't leave her. She's very cross; but then, she is sick all the time, nearly, and I won't go.'
"'O, yes, do!' said the woman. 'I have a lovely white pony, as gentle as a kitten, that you shall have to ride, and beautiful dresses. You'd better come.'
"'Thank you,' said Daisy; 'I'd like to go with you. You may take Tip. Perhaps he'd like to go, but I won't leave grandmother; she'd die if I did.'
"No sooner had Daisy finished speaking, than the woman turned into a beautiful fairy, the shanty turned into a palace, granny turned into a queen, Daisy into a lovely princess, with black and blue--I mean heavenly--eyes, and Tip turned into a beautiful prince, all dressed in embroidered green velvet; and down on his knees he fell at the princess's feet, vowing love and fidelity untold.
"The fairy spread her wings over the young couple, saying, 'Behold the reward of unselfishness!' and vanished, leaving them in all their bliss."
Millie's story was greeted with shouts of applause and flattering comments.
The boys were about renewing the fire, when Miss Walters announced that it was seven o'clock.
"O, don't go yet!" shouted Phil from the wood-pile. "We've wood enough for an hour yet. Seven o'clock's awful early."
"Don't go, don't go!" came from a chorus of voices; and Miss Walters, who only cared for their comfort, said she would stay if that was the general wish, or would go with any of the girls that were in haste to get home. No one made any movement to go, and she was quietly led back to her throne on the hay, at the entrance of the cave.
A song was proposed, and Miss W. led them in the sweet words of "In the Beauty of the Lilies," the boys coming out strong with the chorus. Then two girls sang a duet very sweetly. Another hour glided swiftly away, when Miss Walters said, "Phil, your fire burns low; push the blazing ends for a final blaze, so we may get all our things; for we must go now."
Everything arranged, they bade good by to the hospitable cave, then marched down the hill, the boys whistling "When Johnny comes marching Home."
On they trudged, dropping various members of their little party as they turned off to go to their homes. All agreed they had had a delightful day.
F. E. S.
THE HAUNTS OF WILD BEASTS.
In crossing the forests which lie about that singular system of ponds and lakes that occupy the northern interior of the State of Maine, the tourist and hunter will often come upon well-beaten paths, running through the woods, trodden hard, as if by the passage of myriads of feet; and this in a region rarely, or never, entered by man. They are the paths of wild beasts--bears, lynxes, wildcats, the moose, and the carribou,--along which they pass from lake to lake, in pursuit of their food, or upon hostile forays. When two lakes adjoin each other, with no more than a mile or half a mile of forest between them, there will nearly always be found, across the narrowest part of the isthmus, a path of this sort, more or less worn, according as the locality abounds with game, or the lakes with fish.
One of the widest and most used of these that I have ever seen, led from the bank of Moose River up to the low shores of Holeb Pond, in one of the not yet numbered townships near the Canada line--so near that the high, dingy summit of the "Hog's Back" was plainly visible to the north-westward. Starting out from between two large boulders on the stream, which at this point is broken by rips, it runs crooking and turning amid clumps of hazel and alder, till lost to view in a wide flat, covered with "high bush" cranberries, but lost to sight only, however; for its tortuous course still continues beneath the thick shrubs, until at a distance of two hundred rods it emerges on the pond.
Happening to cross it a year ago last autumn, in company with Rod Nichols (my comrade on these tramps), the idea suggested itself that a good thing might perhaps be done by setting our traps along the path. For where there were so many passing feet, some of them might without doubt be entrapped.
Rod thought it was the "beat" of some bears, or "lucivees," while I inclined to the opinion that otters or "fishers" had made it.
So we brought up our traps,--half a dozen small ones, which we used for sable and otter--from the dug-out (canoe) down on the stream, and during the following afternoon set them at different points in the path, between the border of the cranberry flat and the river. Then drawing our canoe up out of the water, we encamped on the stream about a mile below the path, and waited for the game.
Our stock of deer meat had got out. We had to content ourselves, both for supper and breakfast, the following morning, with a couple of hares--lean as usual. Who ever saw a fat hare?
Old hunters are always telling the young sportsman about the marvellous properties of shaving-soap made from hare's tallow and cedar ashes. The flesh has about as much taste and nutrition in it as--so much paper pulp, for want of a better comparison to express its utter lack of flavor. But during the forenoon we managed to shoot four partridges. These we first parboiled in our camp kettle, then broiled on coals. They made us a comfortable dinner; and towards sunset we again paddled up the stream, to visit the traps.
Coming near where the path strikes out from the river, we drew up the dug-out, and followed in to the place where we had set the first trap. It was gone; but the grass about the spot was beaten down, and the bushes broken. And on looking around, we discovered a trail leading off through the weeds. Following this for ten or a dozen rods, we came to a large, rough stone; and near it lay the trap, shattered and bent, with the springs broken, and the jaws gaping and powerless. The stone, too, looked newly scratched, as if from heavy blows. The trap had evidently been beaten upon.
"Some large animal," said I.
"Bear, probably," said Rod. "They will frequently smash up a small trap to get it off their feet."
Whatever it was, the creature had freed himself and gone. Rod picked up the broken trap, and we went back, and on to the next.
This one was just as we had placed it--not sprung. So we kept on to the third, which was sprung, but empty, with little clots of hair clinging to the teeth. The hair looked like that of a sable; but he, too, had escaped.
The fourth was sprung and drawn out of the path. We crept cautiously up, and lo! we had a contemptible little musquash (muskrat)--skin not worth a shilling. He was busy as a bee gnawing at his leg. In a few minutes more he would have been at liberty--minus a foot. If left any length of time after being caught, they will frequently gnaw off the leg in the trap. For this reason, those who make a business of trapping them set their traps under water, well weighted. They will then drown in a few moments, and may thus be secured.
The last two traps were not sprung.
"A big thing this!" muttered Rod. "Had our labor for our pains. Too bad."
We were near the edge of the cranberry flat; and just as Rod was bemoaning our poor luck, a slight crackling out in the thick cranberry bushes came to our ears.
"Hark!" whispered Rod; "something out there. The bear, perhaps."
Standing on tiptoe, we peeped quietly over the tops of the bushes, now laden with the green cranberries. Off some seventeen or eighteen rods, something was slowly moving. We could see it plainly--something which, at first sight, looked like the roots of an old dry pine stump, a great mass of stubs and prongs.
"A moose!" exclaimed Rod, in an eager whisper. "A moose browsing the cranberries! Quick with your rifle! Together now!"
We both fired. The huge animal, fully nine feet in height beneath his antlers, bounded into the air at the reports, with a wild, hoarse cry, which I can compare to nothing I have ever heard for hideousness. In a frightful way it resembled the neigh of a horse, or, rather, the loud squeal of that animal when bitten or otherwise hurt--bounded up, then fell, floundering and wallowing amid the cranberries, uttering hideous moans.
As quickly as we could for the thick and tangled bushes, we made our way out towards the spot. The fearful struggles stilled as we drew near. Our aim, at so short a distance, had been thoroughly fatal. A great opening in the bushes had been smashed down, in the midst of which lay the moose, with its large nostrils dilated, gasping and quivering. But its great ox eyes were set, and rapidly glazing. The bushes were all besprinkled and drenched with blood. One bullet had struck and broken the skull into the brain; that was Rod's. Mine had gone into the breast, striking the lungs,--probably, from the profuse bleeding.
"A pretty good shot!" exclaimed Rod, looking upon the slaughter from a purely business stand-point. "Moosehide is always worth something. So are those antlers. A noble set--aren't they? All of four feet broad across the top. Pretty heavy to lug; we can put them in the canoe, though."
"Then there's the meat," said I.
"That's so," cried Rod, smacking his lips. "No more rabbit's broth for us at present. O, won't we have some grand moose steaks! Do you hear that, old boy? How does that strike your fancy? Come, let's skin him, and cut him up. I long to behold some of that surloin broiling! Rabbit meat, indeed!" and Rod whipped out his hunting-knife, and fell upon the carcass with the zeal of a hungry bald eagle.
In a few minutes we had stripped off the skin. Rod then wrenched off the antlers, cut out the muffle (the end of the nose), and also about a hundred weight of what he considered the choicest of the meat. The rest of it--nine or ten hundred pounds--we could only leave where it had fallen. It would be of no use to us, so far from the settled lands.
To carry our spoils down to our canoe, we had to make two trips; for the antlers alone were as much as one could take along at once. We had gone back after them and the hide.
"Too bad," remarked Rod, "to leave all this flesh here to rot above ground."
"I doubt if it be left to rot above ground," said I. "There are too many hungry mouths about for that."
"Right there," said Rod; "and that makes me think we might use it to lure them, and to bait our traps with. Drag it out to the path, and set the traps round it."
The idea seemed a good one. So we cut the remains of the carcass in two. Whole it was too heavy to be moved. Then, fastening some stout withes into them, we dragged the pieces, one after the other, out to the path, and left it at the place where the path entered the cranberry bushes. This done, we set the traps about it,--the remaining five,--and then went back to the canoe with the antlers and skin.
"Made a very fair thing of it, after all," remarked Rod, as we floated with the current down to our camp. "Tell you what, old fellow, these steaks are not to be sneezed at. More than ordinary pot luck just at this time."
It is needless to say that we fully satisfied our taste for venison that night, or that our breakfast next morning was merely a repetition of supper. Such things are to be expected in the wilderness. Suffice it to add, that we neither overate nor overslept, but were up betimes, and off to examine our traps considerably before sunrise. We did not go up in the canoe on the river, but walked along the bank through the woods.
"We may surprise a bear or a lynx at the carcass," said Rod.
So, as we drew near the place where we had left it in the path the evening before, we made our way amid the brush with as little noise as possible. A small hollow, overrun with hackmatack, led up towards the spot. We crept along the bed of it, in order to approach unobserved. Pausing a moment to listen, the clank of a chain came faintly to our ears, then a growling, worrying noise, heard when two creatures, jealous of each other's rights, eat from the same piece.
"Game!" whispered Rod.
Climbing quietly up the steep side, we peeped out from amid the green boughs. We had got up within nine or ten rods; but intervening bushes partially hid the carcass. Something was moving about it, however--something black. The trap chains were rattling. Then a big black head was raised, to growl; and as if in reply came a sharp snarl from some animal out of sight. The black creature darted forward; and a great uproar arose, growling, grappling, and spitting, at which there flew up a whole flock of crows, cawing and hawing; and the noise increasing, there sprang into the air, at a single flap, a great yellow bird, uttering a savage scream.
"An eagle!" whispered Rod; "and that black creature's a bear, I guess. Can't see him just plainly. Growls like one, though. Fighting with some other animal--isn't he? Some sort of a cat, by the spitting."
"Shall we fire on them?" said I.
"No; let 'em have it out," said Rod. "One of them will be pretty sure to get chewed up, and the other won't leave the carcass. Besides, the cat's in the trap, I reckon, by the rattling." For the jingling of the chain could still be heard over the howling they were making. But ere the fight had lasted many seconds, a suppressed screech, followed by a crunching sound, told ill for one or the other of the combatants. "The cat's got his death hug," muttered Rod.
Presently the bear--a great, clumsy-looking fellow--came out into view, strutted along, scrubbing his feet on the grass, like a dog, and went back to the carcass. The eagle and the crows had come back to it. They flew before him.
"Keep your eye on the eagle," whispered Rod. "I would like to get him. It isn't a 'white head.' Never saw one like it."
The great bird circled slowly several times, then stooped, almost touching the bear's shaggy back with its hooked talons. At that the bear raised his ugly muzzle, all reeking from his feast, and growled menacingly. This was repeated several times, the bear warning him off at each stoop, and sometimes striking with his big paw. Finding the bear not inclined to divide with him, the eagle, with one mighty flap of his wings, rose up to the top of a tall hemlock standing near, and perched upon it. We could see the branches bend and sway beneath his weight.
"I'll have him now," muttered Rod, poking the muzzle of his rifle out through the boughs. "You take the bear. Ready! now!"
We blazed away. With a wild shriek the eagle came tumbling down through the hemlock. Rod ran out towards him, and I made up to the bear. Old Bruin was merely wounded--an ugly flesh wound; and not knowing whence it came, he had flown at the dead lynx,--for such it turned out to be,--and was giving him another hugging. Seeing me, he started up, to rectify his mistake, probably; but I had put in another charge, and instantly gave him a quietus. Just then Rod came up, dragging the eagle.
"Never saw one like it," exclaimed he. "I mean to take it down to Greenville."
After skinning the bear and the lynx, we gathered up the traps, and went down to our camp. Together with the spoils of the moose, we had now a full canoe load, and stowing them in, went down the river that afternoon. Two days after, we arrived at Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake. There we fell in with a party of tourists--from Boston, I believe. They pronounced Rod's "big bird" to be a golden eagle.
C. A. STEPHENS.
WORSHIP OF NATURE.
The green earth sends her incense up From many a mountain shrine; From folded leaf and dewy cup, She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills Rise white as wings of prayer; The altar curtains of the hills Are sunset's purple air.
A HUNTING ADVENTURE.
Tired of the heat and confusion of the city, my friend Clarke and I left New York one fine morning for a hunting excursion on the prairies.
At Galena, on the Mississippi, we went aboard a steamer which conveyed us to St. Paul. Here we fitted out for the trip, and finally, at Sauk Rapids set our foot for the first time on the prairie.
From the Mississippi, at Sauk Rapids, we struck about north-west across the prairie for Fort Garry, a Hudson Bay Company's fort, at the junction of the Assiniboine and Red River, where we replenished some of our stores; and thence we travelled through the Sioux, or Da-ko-tah country, until we reached Turtle Mountain.
Our party consisted of Clarke and myself, two French Canadians, whom we had engaged at St. Paul, and a half-breed, whom we had met on the frontier before reaching Fort Garry.
One evening, before camping at the base of Turtle Mountain, Clarke and I gave chase to some buffalo, and I killed one, which I proceeded to cut up at once by removing the tongue and undercut of the fillet. The meat I tied to the thongs of my saddle, placed there especially for that purpose, and I rejoined the camp before nightfall. Clarke came back shortly afterwards, having killed his buffalo in three or four shots, and after a long chase. This had delayed him so much, that he lacked time to cut up his animal; so he marked the spot as well as he could by its bearings with Turtle Mountain, and he rode homewards to the camp, intending to go on the following morning, and get the meat for home consumption.
We cooked and ate our dinners, and rolling ourselves up in our buffalo robes, we slept most soundly. The following morning, Clarke went out and fetched his pony, which was picketed near the camp, saddled it, took his rifle and hunting-knife, and then off he started to look for the dead buffalo of the previous evening, cut it up, and bring home some of the meat.
I remained in camp; and as my wardrobe was rather dilapidated from constant hunting, and the limited number of clothes I had with me, I proceeded to mend my trousers, which were worn through just where it might naturally be expected they would first give way. This I could only do by shortening the legs of the garment. However, the end justified the means in this case.
These repairs, with other necessary work about our rifles and guns, occupied the morning very pleasantly; and about midday I went up the hill behind our camp, where a small bluff, or headland, projected from it over the vast grassy plain. I took my telescope with me, as every traveller in those wild regions should always do, when spying out either the fatness of the land or the possible surrounding dangers. Far and wide my eye fell over the gentle undulations of the prairie, but no deer or buffalo could I see.
No; instead of quietly feeding game, I discovered my friend Clarke, some three or four miles from camp, galloping at the top of his horse's speed towards us, and five Indians in hot pursuit of him.