Grit A-Plenty

VI

THE TRAPPING PARTNER

“TH’ wind’s freshenin’, and she feels like snow. I’m expectin’ a white camp tonight,” observed Indian Jake when they had passed out of The Jug and out of the view of the cabin.

“She does feel like snow,” said David, “but it’s a good wind for us, and if she holds where she is we’ll make a fine run up Grand Lake.”

“Yes,” agreed Indian Jake, blowing a mouthful of smoke from his pipe and watching its direction. “She’s east nor’east now, and fine. We’d better not lose any time stopping at the post.”

“No,” said David, “not with a fine breeze like this. Pop was four days gettin’ up th’ Lake last year, with contrary winds.”

It was a somber morning. Gray clouds hung low and the wind was damp and cold, but it was a fair wind, and before nine o’clock they came abreast the post. Zeke Hodge saw them and hailed and they answered his hail, but passed on into the river without stopping, at which Zeke marveled, for he had never before known a boat to pass the post without pausing at least for a brief call.

The tide was nearing flood, and this was vastly to their advantage in counteracting the river current, and the five miles to Grand Lake was accomplished in an hour.

“Oh, ’tis grand!” exclaimed Andy when the long vista of lake appeared before them.

“Aye,” said David, “’tis that, and that’s why she’s called Grand Lake, I’m thinkin’.”

At the eastern end of the lake, where they entered it, both the northern and southern shores were lined with low hills wooded to their summits with spruce, white birch, balsam fir, and tamarack, the foliage of the latter making golden splotches in the green. Some few miles up the lake the wooded hills on its southern shore gave place to naked mountains, with perpendicular cliffs rising sheer from the water’s edge for several hundred feet, grim and austere, but at the same time giving to the landscape a touch of grandeur and majestic beauty. In the far distance to the westward high peaks in an opalescent haze lifted their summits against the sky.

The vast and boundless wilderness inhabited by no human being other than a few wandering Indians, lay in somber and impressive silence, just as God had fashioned it untold ages before, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man. There were no smoking chimneys, no ugly brick walls, no shrieking locomotives; no sound to break the silence save the cry of startled gulls, soaring overhead, the honk of a flock of wild geese in southern flight, and the waves lapping upon the rocky shore. The air was fresh and spicy with the odor of balsam and other forest perfumes. It was a wilderness redolent with suggestions of mysteries hidden in the bosom of its unconquered and unmeasured solitudes and waiting for discovery.

“It makes me feel wonderful strange—t’ think I’m goin’ in there,” remarked Andy presently, gazing away over the dark forest which receded to the northward over rolling hills, “and t’ think we’re t’ be gone till th’ break-up next spring, an’ won’t see Pop or Margaret or Doctor Joe for so long.”

“Not gettin’ sorry you’re goin’, now, be you?” grinned Indian Jake.

“No, I’m not gettin’ sorry. Not me! I’m wonderful glad t’ be goin’,” Andy asserted stoutly.

“Better not think about the folks and home too much, or you’ll be gettin’ homesick,” counseled Indian Jake.

“I’m not like t’ get homesick!” and Andy’s voice suggested that nothing in the world was less likely to happen.

“Ah, but you’ll have a sore trial, lads,” said Indian Jake. “Wait till we’re deep in th’ trails, and winter settles, and th’ wind cuts t’ th’ bone, and th’ shiftin’ snow blinds you, and th’ cold’s like t’ freeze your blood, and t’ have t’ fight it for your very life. Then’s th’ time that you’ll be tried out for th’ stuff that’s in you—both of you. And you can’t rest then, for there’s fur t’ be got out of th’ traps, and there’s no one t’ get it but you, and you got t’ get it. Then, lads, you’ll be thinkin’ of your warm snug home at The Jug, with its big stove, and your cozy nest of a bed. There’s no rest for the trapper that makes a good hunt, lads. ’Tis the man that rests when th’ storms blow wild and the cold settles bitter and fierce, that makes th’ poor hunt. ’Tis always so with work.”

“We’ll stick to un, and make th’ good hunt,” David declared stoutly.

“Aye, we’ll stick to un, and not be gettin’ homesick, either. We’ll have plenty o’ grit,” said Andy.

“That’s the way to talk, lads!” said Indian Jake heartily. “Stick to it, lads, and have grit a plenty, and you’ll make a good hunt.”

“But I was thinkin’ o’ what a wonderful big place ’tis in there,” and Andy was again gazing at the forest-clad hills.

“’Tis a big place,” said Indian Jake.

“Pop says,” continued Andy, “that ’tis so big they’s no end to un.”

“Aye,” agreed Indian Jake, “no end to un.”

“And there’ll be nobody but just us in there,” and there was awe in Andy’s voice.

“Just us,” said Indian Jake.

Snow was falling when they made camp that evening in the shelter of the forest on the lake shore, and cozy and snug the tent was with a roaring fire in the stove, and the wind swirling the snow outside, and moaning through the tree tops. Indian Jake had said little during the afternoon, but now as he fried a pan of pork by the light of a sputtering candle, while David and Andy laid the bed of fragrant spruce boughs, he volunteered the information that they would be in the Nascaupee River early in the morning.

“That’s fine,” said David. “We made a wonderful day’s travel, now, didn’t we?”

Indian Jake did not reply, and the boys, too, fell into silence, until supper was eaten and Indian Jake had lighted his pipe. Then David asked:

“Where were you livin’ before you came to th’ Bay, Jake?”

“South,” grunted Indian Jake.

“Did your folks live there?” asked Andy.

“Yes,” answered Indian Jake.

“Why don’t yo bring un t’ th’ Bay t’ live, now you’re here?” asked Andy. “’Twould be fine t’ have your folks t’ live with you.”

“Because I can’t,” replied Indian Jake, in a tone that implied he was through talking.

“I’m wonderful sorry,” sympathized Andy.

“It’s too bad, now,” said David.

Indian Jake grunted again, but whether it was a grunt of appreciation or of resentment that they should have asked the questions, they could not tell, and quietly they spread their sleeping bags and slipped into them. They were to learn as the weeks passed that Indian Jake had a double personality—that he was both an Indian and a white man—and that he possessed traits of character peculiar to both.

It was Andy’s first night in camp, and for a time he lay awake wondering if Jamie and his father and Margaret were very lonely without him and David. And then he fell to listening to the wind and the crackling fire in the stove, and to watching in the dim light of the candle the dark outline of Indian Jake’s figure crouched before the stove and silently smoking. The half-breed’s face with its beaked nose was never a pleasant thing to see, and now it looked unusually sinister and forbidding to Andy. Presently it began to fade, and a great black wolf took its place, and Andy dreamed that the wolf was crouching over him and David, ready to devour them.

He awoke with a start. The candle light was out and all was darkness and strangely silent, with no sound save David’s deep breathing and the moan of wind through the trees. It was weird and lonely there in the darkness, and when Andy thought of how long it would be before he and David returned to The Jug again, it seemed still lonelier.

“I must have plenty o’ grit, and keep a stout heart, the way Jamie is doing,” he thought, and it gave him courage, and he slept again.

VII

IN THE HEART OF THE WILDERNESS

THE boys were awakened in the morning by Indian Jake entering the tent with a kettle of water for the tea. The candle was lighted, and the half-breed, in better humor, or at least more talkative than on the previous evening, greeted them with a cheerful enough:

“Mornin’, lads.”

“Mornin’,” said they, and David added: “Did much snow fall?”

“Just a light fall, and it’s clear and fine, and the wind’s about gone.”

There was no time for dawdling in bed, and the two lads sprang up and made their simple toilet. Already the tent was warm, and they rolled their sleeping bags and tied them into neat bundles, and then sat by the cozy, crackling stove while Indian Jake fried the pork and made the tea.

“Will we get to the rapids today, Jake?” asked David, when finally Indian Jake, after removing the pan of pork from the fire and placing it before them on the ground, poured tea into the tin cups they held out to him.

“If the wind don’t come contrary to us,” said Indian Jake, dipping a piece of bread into the pan and bringing it forth dripping with hot grease. “It’s a long pull from the mouth of the river ag’in’ th’ current, but we’ll try for it. We’ll be losin’ no time, leastways, for there’s no time t’ be lost if we gets t’ Seal Lake before th’ freeze up, with our late start.”

“We’ll work hard for it, whatever,” declared David. “’Twould be a bad fix t’ be caught by th’ ice before we gets to Seal Lake.”

“That it would,” agreed Indian Jake. “But you lads are goin’t’ find the work gettin’ there harder’n any work you ever had t’ do.”

The first hint of dawn was in the East when they broke camp and set forward upon their journey again. The air was brisk and frosty, but when the sun rose it shone warm and mellow, and the snow melted and trickled in glistening rivulets which ran down everywhere over the rocks to join the river. That day they reached the rapids, and then followed many days of tedious, back-breaking toil as they ascended into the higher country—days when the boys needed all the grit that was in them, and stout hearts, too.

Sometimes Indian Jake and David pulled the boat at the end of a rope, while Andy, with an oar as a rudder, or standing in the bow with a long pole, steered it away from the shore and prevented its running afoul of rocks. Thus they traversed a brook for some miles, when it became necessary to circumvent a section of the river where it thundered down through the hills in a great white torrent no boat could stem.

From the head of the brook there was a carry, or portage, as they called it, of nearly two miles. Over this portage the boat must needs be hauled foot by foot, overland. Several round sticks were cut for rollers, and the boat drawn over them by David and Indian Jake, while Andy attended to placing the rollers and keeping them in position.

Then the provisions and other equipment were carried on their backs to the place where the boat was to be launched. Indian Jake bore tremendous burdens, with his voyageur’s tumpline, which is the Indian’s way. And David and Andy, with combined shoulder and head straps, staggered after him with as heavy loads as they could carry, and did their best. Even then it was necessary to make three journeys over the trail before the last pack was delivered at the place where the boat had been carried. A whole day was occupied in transferring the boat, and the larger part of another day in transferring the goods, but Indian Jake cheered the lads with the assurance that it was the longest portage, and therefore the hardest work they would encounter on the journey.

“I’m glad enough of that,” declared David. “I’m about scrammed, and I’m feelin’ like I couldn’t go much farther till I rests.”

“That’s just like I feels, too,” admitted Andy.

“We’ll make camp here for the night,” said Indian Jake, “because ’tis the best place to camp we’ll come to before dark finds us. But every time we feels weary we can’t stop to rest. Travelers must keep goin’ often enough when they’re tired. There’ll be tired days enough, too, before we reach Seal Lake, and there’ll be tireder days on th’ fur trails in th’ winter, and you lads promised you’d keep your grit.”

“Aye,” admitted David, shamed by the rebuff, “we promised, and we’ll be keepin’ our grit. I was forgettin’, when I made complaint.”

“And I was forgettin’, too,” said Andy.

Indian Jake never complained, and never admitted he was tired, and never again did he hear complaint from either David or Andy, though often enough they were almost too weary of evenings to eat their supper.

Whether Indian Jake appreciated their self-restraint and sturdy tenacity, or accepted it as a matter of course, he never commented upon it or uttered a word of approval, though he presently began to treat them more as companions and veterans than as novices. Sometimes he even asked David’s opinion upon some point, and when he did this David felt vastly complimented, for there was no better woodsman in the country than Indian Jake.

The nights were growing frosty. The ground was hard frozen, and the bowlders at the water’s edge were coated with ice. But the river itself, too active to submit so early to the shackles of approaching winter, went rushing along in its course, now quietly, with a deep, dark, sullen current, now thundering over rocks in wild, tempestuous rapids that made the heart thrill with its force and power. Day and night the rush of waters was in the cars of the travelers, but withal it was a pleasant sound. They thought of the river as a mighty living thing, and as a companion, despite the toil it demanded of them.

“Th’ river roarin’ out there makes me solemn, like,” remarked Andy one evening after they had eaten supper and sat by the crackling stove while Indian Jake quietly puffed at his pipe.

“How, now, does she make you solemn?” asked David.

“I were thinkin’ how she keeps rushin’ on an’ roarin’ that way, always,” Andy explained. “She were goin’ that way before we were born, and she’ll keep goin’ that way after we’re dead, no matter how old we lives t’ be. She’ll keep goin’, and goin’, and goin’, and there’s never like t’ be an end t’ her goin’ till th’ world comes to an end. And I were thinkin’ how much she’ll see that none of us’ll ever see. Other folks’ll be comin’ in here t’ trap just like we’re comin’ now—after we’re dead—and we won’t know it, but th’ river will.”

“And there’s no end t’ th’ water that feeds her,” added David. “I wonders where it all comes from.”

“I wonders, now,” mused Andy.

“There’s no doubtin’, now, she’s been runnin’ like that since th’ Lard made th’ world,” continued David. “’Tis hard t’ understand where all th’ water comes from.”

“I’m thinkin’, now,” and Andy’s voice was filled with awe, “th’ Lard made un that way, and fixed un so there’d never be lack o’ water. I wonders, now, if th’ Lard keeps watchin’ her all th’ time, and if she’d go dry if He didn’t keep lookin’ out for un.”

“Th’ Lard watches un all th’ time,” said David. “There’s no doubtin’ that. Th’ Lard watches out for everything, and He even knows what we’re thinkin’ this minute.”

“I wonders if He does, now?” and Andy’s eyes were filled with wonder. “Do you think, Jake, th’ Lard made th’ river, and keeps watch that she’s always got plenty o’ water?”

Indian Jake shifted uneasily, and reaching over to snuff the candle, grunted:

“Hugh! I think sometimes the devil made her, th’ way we have t’ fight her t’ get up t’ Seal Lake.”

“’Tweren’t th’ devil!” objected Andy, horrified at the suggestion. “’Twere th’ Lard made she. We couldn’t get t’ Seal Lake without she, though she is a bit hard t’ go up sometimes.”

“Pop says th’ Lard makes it hard for us t’ master th’ good things He makes for us,” said David. “That’s so we’ll know how good they are after we masters un.”

“You lads’ll be gettin’ homesick, and you talks about such things,” broke in Indian Jake, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “It’s time t’ turn in.”

And so the days of toil continued, until one morning they entered a lake, and David gave a shout of joy and announced to Andy that the work of long carries and hauling the boat through rapids was at an end.

“We’re ’most to th’ Narrows tilt,” said he. “This is th’ lower end of Seal Lake, and just above here is th’ Narrows.”

And so it proved. When presently the lake narrowed down into a short strait and directly opened into a far extending expanse of water, David pointed excitedly to the eastern shore, some four hundred yards above, with the exclamation:

“There ’tis, Andy! There ’tis! See un?”

And a few minutes later the boat’s prow grounded upon a sandy beach at the point David had indicated and at the mouth of a small river which emptied into Seal Lake at the head of the Narrows, and there in the edge of the forest that bordered the beach nestled the little log hut they called a “tilt.”

“Here we are at last,” said Indian Jake, who was in an amiable state of mind, “and I take it you lads are glad enough t’ be here.”

“’Tis fine!” exclaimed Andy.

“’Tis that,” seconded David, “and fine t’ get here ahead o’ th’ freeze-up.”

“Now we’ll tidy th’ place up and get it ready to stop in,” said Indian Jake, “and store our outfit away.”

Even Andy had to stoop to enter the low door, though, within, the ceiling was amply high for Indian Jake to stand erect. The room was about ten feet square, and was fitted with low bunks on two sides. It contained a sheet-iron tent stove, with the pipe, which answered the double purpose of pipe and chimney, extending up through the roof.

They set about at once to make the place hospitable and comfortable. Rubbish was cleared away and the earthen floor swept clean with a handful of twigs, which answered well enough in lieu of a broom. Then fragrant balsam and spruce boughs were spread upon the bunks for a bed, and finally the outfit was carried up from the boat and conveniently disposed of, and a fire kindled in the stove.

The relaxation after the long, hard journey, was doubly acceptable. The wood crackling in the stove, the spicy perfume of balsam, and the sense of a secure retreat, gave the tilt an air of coziness and comfort the boys had not experienced since leaving The Jug. This was to be their headquarters and their home for many months, and their place of rest and relaxation.

David brought a kettle of water from the lake and set it on for dinner, while Indian Jake turned some flour into a pan, and began dexterously mixing dough for hot bread.

“We made good time,” he remarked good-naturedly, as he fitted a cake of dough into the frying pan. “It’s the second day of October, and the lake won’t fasten for another week, whatever. There’s some geese about yet, and we’ll get some of ’em. They’ll make a good change now and again, later on.”

“That’ll be fine!” exclaimed David.

“We’ll do all th’ huntin’ we can in daylight,” said Indian Jake, “and of evenings get our stretchin’ boards in shape for the time when we’ll need ’em. And I expect there’ll be some pa’tridges—”

Indian Jake suddenly paused in his work to listen. He had but a moment to wait, when there broke forth startlingly near a heart-rending howl. It rose and fell in mournful cadence, dying finally in a long-drawn “Woo-oo-oo,” so near that it sent the blood tingling in shivering waves up the spines of the boys.

VIII

ANDY’S BEAR HUNT

“WOLVES!” said Indian Jake, resuming his cooking with unconcern. “They must be the other side of the little river, or they’d smell our smoke. The wind’s blowin’ up from that way.”

“Are they like t’ trouble us?” asked Andy anxiously.

“They’ll keep clear of us, never fear,” declared David stoutly. “I’d like t’ get a shot at un once.”

“They’re likely under cover o’ th’ woods,” said Indian Jake. “But you might have a look and see.”

David took his rifle and went cautiously out of the door, but presently returned to report that the wolves, which were still crying, were, as Indian Jake had supposed, hidden in the woods on the opposite side of the river.

“They won’t bother us,” said Indian Jake. “Wolves are mostly too much afraid of the man smell to be troublesome. We might go after ’em, but they’re hard t’ get at, and we wouldn’t stand much chance of seein’ ’em.”

“Will they be like t’ come at us on th’ trails?” asked Andy.

“Not much fear of that,” reiterated Indian Jake. “Mostly they follows the caribou, and keeps clear of men. Slice some pork, Davy; and Andy, you put the tea over. The water’s boilin’.”

“I’m wonderin’, now, how many of un there is,” said Andy as he made the tea.

“Two was all that sounded,” explained Indian Jake. “One was a good piece off, and called lonesome, like he wanted company, and the other that answered was handy by. They’ll likely be gettin’ together.”

When dinner was eaten, Indian Jake lighted his pipe with a shaving which he whittled and ignited at the vent in the stove door, and while David and Andy washed the dishes, busied himself with an examination of the stretching boards which Thomas had used the previous year. These were of different sizes, and properly shaped to fit the pelts of martens, foxes and other animals hunted along the trails.