Camp and Trail: A Story of the Maine Woods
Page 19
CHAPTER XVIII.
TO LONELIER WILDS.
Before daybreak next morning Herb Heal was astir. Apparently even ashort night's sleep had driven from him all disturbing memories. Hewhistled and hummed softly, like the strong, hopeful fellow he was,controlling his notes so that they should not awaken his companions,while he hauled out and overlooked the canvas for a tent, to see if itwas sound. Next he surveyed the camp-stores, and put up a supply offlour, pork, and coffee in a canvas bag, enough for four persons tosubsist upon with economy during an excursion of six or seven days. Forhe knew that his employers would follow his suggestion, and be eager tostart for the woods near Katahdin soon after they got their eyes open.
He had been doing his work with a candle held in his brown fingers; butas dawn-light began to enter the cabin, he quenched its dingy, yellowflicker, opened the camp-door, and surveyed the morning sky.
"It'll be a good day to start out, I guess," he muttered. "Let's see,what time is it?"
The stars had not yet paled, and Herb forthwith fell to studying them;for they were his jewelled time-piece, by which he could tell the hourso long as they shone. Watch he had none.
While he gazed aloft at the glinting specks, he unconsciously began tocroon, in a powerful bass voice, with deep gutturals, some words whichcertainly weren't woodsman's English.
"_N'loan pes-saus, mok glint ont-aven, Glint ont-aven, nosh morgan_."
"What on earth is that outlandish thing you're singing, Herb?" roaredNeal Farrar from the bunk, awakened by the sounds. "Give us that staveagain--do!"
The guide started. He had scarcely been aware of what he was humming,and his laugh was a trifle disconcerted.
"So you're waking up, are ye?" he said. "Tain't time to be stirring yet;I ought to be kicked for making such a row."
"But what's that you were singing?" reiterated Neal. "The words weren'tEnglish, and they had a fine sort of roll."
"They're Injun," was the answer. "I guess 'twas all the talking I donelast night that brung 'em into my head. I picked 'em up from that fellowI was telling you about. He'd start crooning 'em whenever he looked atthe stars to find out the hour."
"Are they about the stars?"
"I guess so. A city man, who had studied the redskins' language a lot,told me they meant:--
'We are the stars which sing, We sing with our light.'"[1]
[Footnote 1: Mr. Leland's translation.]
Then Herb chanted the two lines again in the original tongue.
"There was quite a lot more," he said; "but I can't remember it. Ilearned some queer jargon from Chris, and how to make most of the signsbelonging to the Indian sign-talk. The fellow had more of his motherthan his father in him. I guess I'd better give over jabbering, and cookour breakfast."
It was evident that Herb did not want to dwell upon his reminiscences.And Neal had tact enough to swallow his burning curiosity about allthings Indian. He asked no more questions, but rolled off thefir-boughs, and dressed himself.
Cyrus and Dol sprang up too. All three were soon busy helping forwardpreparations for the start. They packed their knapsacks with a fewnecessaries; and after a hearty breakfast had been eaten,--their lastmeal off moose-steaks for a while, as Herb informed them he "could notcarry any fresh meat along,"--the guide's voice was heard shouting:--
"Ready, are ye, boys? Got all yer traps? Here, Cyrus, jest strap thispack-basket on my shoulders. Now we're off!"
The pack contained the tent, the camp-kettle, and frying-pan, togetherwith the aforementioned provisions, a good axe, etc. It was anuncomfortable load, even for a woodsman's shoulders. But Herb strodeahead with it jauntily. And many times during that first day's tramp ofa dozen miles, his comrades--as they trudged through rugged places afterhim, spots where it was hard to keep one's perpendicular, and feetsometimes showed a sudden inclination to start for the sky--threwenvious glances at his tall figure, "straight as an Indian arrow," hispowerful limbs, and unerring step. Even the horny, capable hands came infor a share of the admiration.
"I guess anything that got into your grip, Herb, would find it hard toget out again without your will," said Cyrus, studying the knotted fistswhich held the straps of the pack-basket.
"Mebbe so," answered the guide frankly. "I've a sort of a trick ofholding on to things once I've got 'em. P'raps that was why I didn't letgo of Chris in that big blizzard 'till I landed him at camp. But Ihope"--here Herb's shoulders shook with heaving laughter, and thecooking utensils in his pack jingled an accompaniment--"I hope I ain'tlike a miserly fellow we had in our lumber-camp. He was awful piousabout some things, and awful mean about others. So the boys said, 'hekept the Sabbath and everything else he could lay his hands upon.' Heused to get riled at it.
"Not that I've a word to say against keeping Sunday," went on Herb, in adifferent key. "Tell you what, out here a fellow thinks a heap of hisday o' rest, when his legs can stop tramping, and his mind get a chanceto do some tall thinking. Now, boys, we've covered twelve good milessince we left Millinokett Lake, and you needn't go any farther to-dayunless you've a mind to. We can make camp right here, near that stream.It will be nice, cold drinking-water, for it has meandered down fromKatahdin."
He pointed to a brook a little way ahead, shimmering in the rays of theafternoon sun, of which they caught stray peeps through the gaps in anintervening wall of pines and hemlocks. A few minutes brought them toits brink. Tired and parched from their journey, each one stooped, andquenched his thirst with a delicious, ice-cold draught.
"Was there ever a soda-fountain made that could give a drink to equalthat?" said Cyrus, smacking his lips with content. "But listen to thenoise this stream makes, boys. I guess if I were to lie beside it for anhour, I'd think, as the Greenlanders do, that I could hear the spiritsof the world talking through it."
"That's a mighty queer notion," answered Herb; "and I never knew asother folks had got hold of it. But, sure's you live! I've thought thesame thing myself lots o' times, when I've slept by a forest stream.Who'll lend a helping hand in cutting down boughs for our fire and bed?I want to be pretty quick about making camp. Then we'll be able to trysome moose-calling after supper."
At this moment a peculiar gulping noise in Neal's throat drew the eyesof his companions upon him. His were bright and strained, peering at theopposite bank.
"Look! What is it?" he gasped, his low voice rattling with excitement.
"A cow-moose, by thunder!" said Herb. "A cow-moose and a calf with her!Here's luck for ye, boys!"
One moment sooner, simultaneously with Neal's gulp of astonishment,there had emerged from the thick woods on the other bank a brown,wild-looking, hornless creature, in size and shape resembling a bigmule, followed by a half-grown reproduction of herself.
Her shaggy mane flew erect, her nostrils quivered like those of arace-horse, her eyes were starting with mingled panic and defiance.
A snort, sudden and loud as the report of a shot-gun, made the fourjump. Neal, who was standing on a slippery stone by the brink, lost hisbalance and staggered forward into the water, kicking up jets of shiningspray. The snort was followed by a grunt, plaintive, distracted, whichsounded oddly familiar, seeing that it had been so well imitated onHerb's horn.
And with that grunt, the moose wheeled about and fled, making the airswish as she cut through it, followed by her young, her mane waving likea pennon.
"Well, if that ain't bang-up luck, I'd like to know what is," said theguide, as he watched the departure. "I never s'posed you'd get a chanceto see a cow-moose; she's shyer'n shy. Say! don't you boys think thatI've done her grunt pretty well sometimes?"
"That you have," was the general response. "_We_ couldn't tell anydifference between your noise and the real thing."
"But she wasn't a patch on the bull-moose in appearance," lamented Dol.
"No more she was, boy. Most female forest creatures ain't sogood-looking as the males! And that's queer when you think of it, forthe girls have the pull over us where beauty is concerned. We ain't
init with 'em, so to speak."
There was a big gale of laughter over Herb Real's gallant admiration forthe other sex, and the sigh which accompanied his expression of it. Hejoined in the mirth himself, though he walked off to make camp,muttering:--
"Sho! You city fellows think that because I'm a woodsman I never heardof love-making in my life."
"Perhaps there is a little girl at some settlement waiting for a home tobe fixed up out of guide's fees," retorted Cyrus.
And the three shouted again for no earthly reason, save that thestimulus of forest air and good circulation was driving the blood withfine pressure through their veins, and life seemed such a glorious,unfolding possession--full of a wonderful possible--that they must holda sort of jubilee.
Herb, who perhaps in his lonely hours in the woods did cherish somevision such as Cyrus suggested, was so infected with their spirit, that,as he swung his axe with a giant's stroke against a hemlock branch, hejoined in with an explosive:--
"Hurrup! Hur-r-r-rup!"
This startled the trio like the bursting of a bomb, and trebled theirexcitement; for their guide, when abroad, had usually the cautious,well-controlled manner of the still-hunter, who never knows what chancesmay be lurking round him which he would ruin by an outcry.
"Quit laughing, boys," he said, recovering prudence directly he had letout his yell. "Quit laughing, I say, or we may call moose here tillcrack o' doom without getting an answer. I guess they're all off to thefour winds a'ready, scared by our fooling."