The Tent Dwellers
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I told the guides that it would be better to begin supper right away, in order that we might not get too hungry before the owl was done. I thought them slow in their preparations for the meal. It was curious, too, for I had promised them they should have a piece of the bird. Del was generous. He said he would give his to Charles. That he never really cared much for birds, anyhow. Why, once, he said, he shot a partridge and gave it away, and he was hungry, too. He gave it to a boy that happened along just then, and when another partridge flew up he didn't even offer to shoot it. We didn't take much stock in that story until it dawned upon us that he had shot the bird out of season, and the boy had happened along just in time to be incriminated by accepting it as a present. It was better to have him as a partner than a witness.
As for Charles, he affected to be really eager for owl meat. He said that all his life he had looked forward to this time. Still, he was slow, I thought. He seemed about as eager for supper as a boy is to carry in the evening wood. He said that one of the canoes leaked a little and ought to be pitched right away. I said it was altogether too damp for such work and that the canoe would wait till morning. Then he wanted to look up a spring, though there were two or three in plain sight, within twenty yards of the camp. I suspected at last that he was not really anxious to cook the owl and was trying to postpone the matter until it was too late for him (the owl) to get properly done before bedtime. Then I became firm. I said that a forest agreement was sacred. That we were pledged to the owl before we shot him, and that we would keep our promise to the dead, even to the picking of his bones.
Wood was gathered then, and the fire blazed. The owl's breast – fat and fine it looked – was in the broiler, and on the fire. There it cooked – and cooked. Then it cooked some more and sent up an appetizing smell. Now and then, I said I thought the time for it had come, but there was a burden of opinion that more cooking would benefit the owl. Meantime, we had eaten a pan or two of trout and a few other things – the bird of course being later in the bill of fare. At most dinners I have attended, this course is contemplated with joy. It did not seem to be on this occasion. Eddie agreed with Del that he had never cared much for bird, anyway, and urged me to take his share. I refused to deprive him of it. Then he said he didn't feel well, and thought he really ought not to eat anything more. I said grimly that possibly this was true, but that he would eat the owl.
It was served then, fairly divided and distributed, as food is when men are on short rations. I took the first taste – I was always venturesome – a little one. Then, immediately, I wished I had accepted Eddie's piece. But meantime he had tasted, too – a miserly taste – and then I couldn't have got the rest of it for money.
For there was never anything so good as that breast of young owl. It was tender, it was juicy, it was as delicately flavored as a partridge, almost. Certainly it was a dainty morsel to us who had of late dealt so largely in fish diet. Had we known where the rest of that brood of owls had flown to we should have started after them, then and there.
Extract from my diary that night: "Eddie has been taken with a slight cramp, and it has occurred to him that the owl meat, though appetizing, may be poisonous. He is searching his medicine bag for remedies. His disaster is merely punishment for the quantity of other food he ate beforehand, in his futile effort to escape the owl."
Chapter Nineteen
Then scan your map, and search your plans,And ponder the hunter's guess —While the silver track of the brook leads backInto the wilderness.We looked for moose again on Sand Lake, but found only signs. On the whole, I thought this more satisfactory. One does not have to go galloping up and down among the bushes and rocks to get a glimpse of signs, but may examine them leisurely and discuss the number, character and probable age of these records, preserving meanwhile a measure of repose, not to say dignity.
Below Sand Lake a brook was said to enter. Descending from the upper interior country, it would lead us back into regions more remote than any heretofore traveled. So far as I could learn, neither of our guides had ever met any one who even claimed in know this region, always excepting the imaginative Indian previously mentioned. Somewhere in these uncharted wilds this Indian person had taken trout "the size of one's leg."
Regardless of the dimensions of this story, it had a fascination for us. We wished to see those trout, even if they had been overrated. We had been hurrying, at least in spirit, to reach the little water gateway that opened to a deeper unknown where lay a chain of lakes, vaguely set down on our map as the Tobeatic4 waters. At some time in the past the region had been lumbered, but most of the men who cut the timber were probably dead now, leaving only a little drift of hearsay testimony behind.
It was not easy to find the entrance to the hidden land. The foliage was heavy and close along the swampy shore, and from such an ambush a still small current might flow unnoticed, especially in the mist that hung about us. More than once we were deceived by some fancied ripple or the configuration of the shore. Del at length announced that just ahead was a growth of a kind of maple likely to indicate a brook entrance. The shore really divided there and a sandy waterway led back somewhere into a mystery of vines and trees.
We halted near the mouth of the little stream for lunch and consultation. It was not a desirable place to camp. The ground was low and oozy and full of large-leaved greenhousy-looking plants. The recent rains had not improved the character of the place. There was poison ivy there, too, and a delegation of mosquitoes. We might just as well have gone up the brook a hundred yards or so, to higher and healthier ground, but this would not have been in accord with Eddie's ideas of exploration. Explorers, he said, always stopped at the mouth of rivers to debate, and to consult maps and feed themselves in preparation for unknown hardships to come. So we stopped and sat around in the mud, and looked at some marks on a paper – made by the imaginative Indian, I think – and speculated as to whether it would be possible to push and drag the canoes up the brook, or whether everything would have to go overland.
Personally, the prospect of either did not fill me with enthusiasm. The size of the brook did not promise much in the way of important waters above or fish even the size of one's arm. However, Tobeatic exploration was down on the cards. Our trip thus far had furnished only a hint of such mystery and sport as was supposed to lie concealed somewhere beyond the green, from which only this little brooklet crept out to whisper the secret. Besides, I had learned to keep still when Eddie had set his heart on a thing. I left the others poring over the hieroglyphic map, and waded out into the clean water of the brook. As I looked back at Del and Charlie, squatting there amid the rank weeds, under the dark, dripping boughs, with Eddie looking over their shoulders and pointing at the crumpled paper, spread before them, they formed a picturesque group – such a one as Livingstone or Stanley and their followers might have made in the African jungles. When I told Eddie of this he grew visibly prouder and gave me two new leaders and some special tobacco.
We proceeded up the stream, Eddie and I ahead, the guides pushing the loaded canoes behind. It was the brook of our forefathers – such a stream as might flow through the valley meadows of New England, with trout of about the New England size, and plentiful. Lively fellows, from seven to nine inches in length, rose two and three at almost every cast. We put on small flies and light leaders and forgot there were such things as big trout in Nova Scotia. It was joyous, old-fashioned fishing – a real treat for a change.
We had not much idea how far we were to climb this water stairway, and as the climb became steeper, and the water more swift, the guides pushed and puffed and we gave them a lift over the hard places – that is, Eddie did. I was too tired to do anything but fish.
As a rule, the water was shallow, but there were deep holes. I found one of them presently, by mistake. It was my habit to find holes that way – places deeper than my waders, though the latter came to my shoulders. It seemed necessary that several times daily I should get my boots full of water. When I couldn't do it in any other way I would fall over something and let the river run into them for a while. I called to Eddie from where I was wallowing around, trying to get up, with my usual ballast.
"Don't get in here!" I said.
He was helping the boys over a hard place just then, tugging and sweating, but he paused long enough to be rude and discourteous.
"I don't have to catch my trout in my boots," he jeered, and the guides were disrespectful enough to laugh. I decided that I would never try to do any of them a good turn again. Then suddenly everything was forgotten, for a gate of light opened out ahead, and presently we pushed through and had reached the shores of as lovely a sheet of water as lies in the great north woods. It was Tupper Lake, by our calculation, and it was on the opposite side that Tobeatic Brook was said to enter. There, if anywhere, we might expect to find the traditional trout. So far as we knew, no one had looked on these waters since the old lumbering days. Except for exploration there was no reason why any one should come. Of fish and game there were plenty in localities more accessible. To me, I believe the greatest joy there, as everywhere in the wilderness – and it was a joy that did not grow old – was the feeling that we were in a region so far removed from clanging bells and grinding wheels and all the useful, ugly attributes of mankind.
We put out across the lake. The land rose rather sharply beyond, and from among the trees there tumbled out a white foaming torrent that made a wide swirling green pool where it entered. We swept in below this aquarium, Eddie taking one side and I the other. We had on our big flies now and our heavy leaders. They were necessary. Scarcely had a cast gone sailing out over the twisting water when a big black and gold shape leaped into the air and Eddie had his work cut out for him. A moment later my own reel was singing, and I knew by the power and savage rushes that I had something unusual at the other end.
"Trout as big as your leg!" we called across to each other, and if they were not really as big as that, they were, at all events, bigger than anything so far taken – as big as one's arm perhaps – one's forearm, at least, from the hollow of the elbow to the fingertips. You see how impossible it is to tell the truth about a trout the first time. I never knew a fisherman who could do it. There is something about a fish that does not affiliate with fact. Even at the market I have known a fish to weigh more than he did when I got him home. We considered the imaginative Indian justified, and blessed him accordingly.
Chapter Twenty
You may slip away from a faithful friendAnd thrive for an hour or two,But you'd better be fair, and you'd better be square,Or something will happen to you.We took seventeen of those big fellows before we landed, enough in all conscience. A point just back of the water looked inviting as a place to pitch the tents, and we decided to land, for we were tired. Yet curious are the ways of fishermen: having had already too much, one becomes greedy for still more. There was an old dam just above, unused for a generation perhaps, and a long, rotting sluiceway through which poured a torrent of water. It seemed just the place for the king of trouts, and I made up my mind to try it now before Eddie had a chance. You shall see how I was punished.
I crept away when his back was turned, taking his best and longest-handled landing net (it may be remembered I had lost mine), for it would be a deep dip down into the sluice. The logs around the premises were old and crumbly and I had to pick my way with care to reach a spot from which it would be safe to handle a big trout. I knew he was there. I never had a stronger conviction in my life. The projecting ends of some logs which I chose for a seat seemed fairly permanent and I made my preparations with care. I put on a new leader and two large new flies. Then I rested the net in a handy place, took a look behind me and sent the cast down the greased lightning current that was tearing through the sluice.
I expected results, but nothing quite so sudden. Neither did I know that whales ever came so far up into fresh-water streams. I know it was a whale, for nothing smaller could have given a yank like that; besides, in the glimpse I had of him he looked exactly like pictures I have seen of the leviathan who went into commission for three days to furnish passage for Jonah and get his name in print. I found myself suddenly grabbing at things to hold on to, among them being Eddie's long-handled net, which was of no value as ballast, but which once in my hand I could not seem to put down again, being confused and toppling.
As a matter of fact there was nothing satisfactory to get hold of in that spot. I had not considered the necessity of firm anchorage when I selected the place, but with a three-ton trout at the end of a long line, in a current going a thousand miles a minute, I realized that it would be well to be lashed to something permanent. As it was, with my legs swinging over that black mill-race, my left hand holding the rod, and my right clutching the landing net, I was in no position to withstand the onset of a battle such as properly belongs to the North Pacific Ocean where they have boats and harpoons and long coiled lines suitable to such work.
Still, I might have survived – I might have avoided complete disaster, I think – if the ends of those two logs I selected as a seat had been as sound as they looked. Of course they were not. They were never intended to stand any such motions as I was making. In the brief moment allowed me for thought I realized this, but it was no matter. My conclusions were not valuable. I remember seeing the sluice, black, and swift, suddenly rise to meet me, and of dropping Eddie's net as I went down. Then I have a vision of myself shooting down that race in a wild toboggan ride, and a dim, splashy picture of being pitched out on a heap of brush and stones and logs below.
When I got some of the water out of my brains so I could think with them, I realized, first, that I was alive, still clutching my rod and that it was unbroken. Next, that the whale and Eddie's landing net were gone. I did not care so especially much about the whale. He had annoyed me. I was willing to part with him. Eddie's net was a different matter. I never could go back without that. After all his goodness to me I had deceived him, slipped away from him, taken his prized net – and lost it. I had read of such things; the Sunday-school books used to be full of similar incidents. And even if Eddie forgave me, as the good boy in the books always did, my punishment was none the less sure. My fishing was ended. There was just one net left. Whatever else I had done, or might do, I would never deprive Eddie of his last net. I debated whether I should go to him, throw myself on his mercy – ask his forgiveness and offer to become his special guide and servant for the remainder of the trip – or commit suicide.
But presently I decided to make one try, at least, to find the net. It had not been thrown out on the drift with me, for it was not there. Being heavy, it had most likely been carried along the bottom and was at present lodged in some deep crevice. It was useless, of course; still, I would try.
I was not much afraid of the sluice, now that I had been introduced to it. I put my rod in a place of safety and made my way to the upper end of the great trough. Then I let myself down carefully into the racing water, bracing myself against the sides and feeling along the bottom with my feet. It was uncertain going, for the heavy current tried hard to pull me down. But I had not gone three steps till I felt something. I could not believe it was the net. I carefully steadied myself and – down, down to my elbow. Then I could have whooped for joy, for it was the net. It had caught on an old nail or splinter, or something, and held fast.
Eddie was not at the camp, and the guides were busy getting wood. I was glad, for I was wet and bruised and generally disturbed. When I had changed my things and recovered a good deal, I sat in the shade and smoked and arranged my fly-book and other paraphernalia, and brooded on the frailty of human nature and the general perversity and cussedness of things at large. I had a confession all prepared for Eddie, long before he arrived. It was a good confession – sufficiently humble and truthful without being dangerous. I had tested it carefully and I did not believe it could result in any disagreeable penance or disgrace on my part. It takes skill to construct a confession like that. But it was wasted. When Eddie came in, at last, he wore a humble hang-dog look of his own, and I did not see the immediate need of any confession.
"I didn't really intend to run off from you," he began sheepishly. "I only wanted to see what was above the dam, and I tried one or two of the places up there, and they were all so bully I couldn't get away. Get your rod, I want to take you up there before it gets too late."
So the rascal had taken advantage of my brief absence and slipped off from me. In his guilty haste he had grabbed the first landing net he had seen, never suspecting that I was using the other. Clearly I was the injured person. I regarded him with thoughtful reproach while he begged me to get my rod and come. He would take nothing, he said, but a net, and would guide for me. I did not care to fish any more that day; but I knew Eddie – I knew how his conscience galled him for his sin and would never give him peace until he had made restitution in full. I decided to be generous.
We made our way above the dam, around an old half-drained pond, and through a killing thicket of vines and brush to a hidden pool, faced with slabs and bowlders. There, in that silent dim place I had the most beautiful hour's fishing I have ever known. The trout were big, gamy fellows and Eddie was alert, obedient and respectful. It was not until dusk that he had paid his debt to the last fish – had banished the final twinge of remorse.
Our day, however, was not quite ended. We must return to camp. The thicket had been hard to conquer by daylight. Now it was an impenetrable wall of night and thorns. Across the brook looked more open and we decided to go over, but when we got there it proved a trackless, swampy place, dark and full of pitfalls and vines. Eddie, being small and woods-broken could work his way through pretty well, but after a few discouragements I decided to wade down the brook and through the shallow pond above the dam. At least it could not be so deadly dark there.
It was heart-breaking business. I went slopping and plunging among stumps and stones and holes. I mistook logs for shadows and shadows for logs with pathetic results. The pond that had seemed small and shallow by daylight was big enough and deep enough now. A good deal of the way I went on my hands and knees, but not from choice. A nearby owl hooted at me. Bats darted back and forth close to my face. If I had not been a moral coward I should have called for help. Eddie had already reached camp when I arrived and had so far recovered his spiritual status that he jeered at my condition. I resolved then not to mention the sluice and the landing net at all – ever. I needed an immediate change of garments, of course – the third since morning.5 It had been a hard, eventful day. Such days make camping remembered – and worth while.
Chapter Twenty-one
Oh, it's well to live high as you can, my boy,Wherever you happen to roam,But it's better to have enough bacon and beansTo take the poor wanderers home.By this time we had reached trout diet per se. I don't know what per se means, but I have often seen it used and it seems to fit this case. Of course we were not entirely out of other things. We had flour for flapjacks, some cornmeal for mush and Johnnie-cake, and enough bacon to impart flavor to the fish. Also, we were not wholly without beans – long may they wave – the woods without them would be a wilderness indeed. But in the matter of meat diet it was trout per se, as I have said, unless that means we did not always have them; in which case I will discard those words. We did. We had fried trout, broiled trout, boiled trout, baked trout, trout on a stick and trout chowder. We may have had them other ways – I don't remember. I know I began to imagine that I was sprouting fins and gills, and daily I felt for the new bumps on my head which I was certain must result from this continuous absorption of brain food. There were several new bumps, but when I called Eddie's attention to them, he said they were merely the result of butting my head so frequently against logs and stumps and other portions of the scenery. Then he treated them with liniment and new skin.
Speaking of food, I believe I have not mentioned the beefsteak which we brought with us into the woods. It was Eddie's idea, and he was its self-appointed guardian and protector. That was proper, only I think he protected it too long. It was a nice sirloin when we started – thick and juicy and of a deep rich tone. Eddie said a little age would improve it, and I suppose he was right – he most always is. He said we would appreciate it more, too, a little later, which seemed a sound doctrine.
Yet, somehow, that steak was an irritation. It is no easy matter to adjust the proper age of a steak to the precise moment of keen and general appreciation. We discussed the matter a good deal, and each time the steak was produced as a sort of Exhibit A, and on each occasion Eddie decided that the time was not ripe – that another day would add to its food value. I may say that I had no special appetite for steak, not yet, but I did not want to see it carried off by wild beasts, or offered at last on a falling market.
Besides, the thing was an annoyance as baggage. I don't know where we carried it at first, but I began to come upon it in unexpected places. If I picked up a yielding looking package, expecting to find a dry undergarment, or some other nice surprise, it turned out to be that steak. If I reached down into one of the pack baskets for a piece of Eddie's chocolate, or some of his tobacco – for anything, in fact – I would usually get hold of a curious feeling substance and bring up that steak. I began to recognize its texture at last, and to avoid it. Eventually I banished it from the baskets altogether. Then Eddie took to hanging it on a limb near the camp, and if a shower came up suddenly he couldn't rest – he must make a wild rush and take in that steak. I refused at last to let him bring it into the tent, or to let him hang it on a nearby limb. But this made trouble, for when he hung it farther away he sometimes forgot it, and twice we had to paddle back a mile or so to get that steak. Also, sometimes, it got wet, which was not good for its flavor, he said; certainly not for its appearance.
In fact, age told on that steak. It no longer had the deep rich glow of youth. It had a weather-beaten, discouraged look, and I wondered how Eddie could contemplate it in that fond way. It seemed to me that if the time wasn't ripe the steak was, and that something ought to be done about a thing like that. My suggestions did not please Eddie.
I do not remember now just when we did at last cook that steak. I prefer to forget it. Neither do I know what Eddie did with his piece. I buried mine.
Eddie redeemed himself later – that is to say, he produced something I could eat. He got up early for the purpose. When I awoke, a savory smell was coming in the tent. Eddie was squatted by the fire, stirring something in a long-handled frying pan. Neither he nor the guides were communicative as to its nature, but it was good, and I hoped we would have it often. Then they told me what it was. It was a preparation with cream (condensed) of the despised canned salmon which I had denounced earlier in the trip as an insult to live, speckled trout. You see how one's point of view may alter. I said I was sorry now we hadn't brought some dried herring. The others thought it a joke, but I was perfectly serious.