The stars shone brightly. The distant shore line stood out in dark
silhouette marking the boundary of the land of silence, where no man
lived. A thousand miles of trackless, unknown wilderness lay beyond that
dark forest boundary. Charley's imagination pictured it as another
world, apart and different from anything he had ever seen. Reared in a
great city, it was difficult for him, even after his experience of the
past week, to visualize it or form any accurate conception of what lay
within its cold, rugged heart.
Listening to the ripple of water, watching the stars, Charley's thoughts
turned from the dark shore line to the brighter home land. What had his
father said when Mr. Wise returned without him? What would his mother
say and feel when his father reached home alone? How grief-stricken they
would be! Tears came into Charley's eyes, and remorse threatened to
dampen the pleasure, and rob him of the ardour, of the adventure, when
Skipper Zeb, in his big, cheery voice, asked:
"Be you snug and warm back there, Charley, lad?"
"Yes, thank you." Charley's voice betrayed his thoughts, perhaps, for
Skipper Zeb asked:
"Not sorry now that the ship left you, be you, lad?"
"N-n-o," hesitated Charley, "I'm having a great time, but I was thinking
of Dad and Mother, and how badly they will feel."
"Don't be thinkin' o' that now. Think how glad you'll make they when you
goes back." Skipper Zeb laughed heartily. "I'm just laughin' at the way
they'll be takin' on _then_! They'll be just maulin' you to pieces,
they'll be so glad! Think o' _that_ now. Think o' the bad fix you gets
out of, and thank the Lard you gets left at Pinch-In Tickle where you
was as welcome as a son, instead of at some harbour where no one was
bidin', as might o' happened. Just be thinkin' of to-day, and thank the
Lard you're well and hearty, and has a snug berth with plenty o' grub.
Nothin' to worry about! Not a thing!"
"May I have a pull at the oars?" Charley asked, the gloom suddenly
dispersed by Skipper Zeb's cheery voice and logical argument.
"Aye, lad, 'twill warm you up," agreed Skipper Zeb heartily. "Take
Toby's oars. Let Charley have a pull at your oars, Toby, lad."
Charley soon wearied of the unaccustomed work, and blisters began to
form in the palms of soft hands; and when Toby suggested it, he was glad
enough to surrender the oars again to Toby, who minded it not a bit.
Daylight came and with it bright sunshine. Charley's heart beat with
gladness and the joy of life. His far away city home seemed farther away
than ever. He remembered it as one remembers a place of dreams--the
subways, the elevated railways, the traffic-clogged streets, the high
buildings, the noise. Here were no chimneys vomiting smoke and soot.
Here were no dirty streets to poison the air with noxious fumes and
germs of disease. He breathed deeply of the pure air bearing the sweet
perfume of the forest and the refreshing smell of the salt sea. It
filled his lungs like a life-giving tonic. How glorious this wild world
was!
"Well, now!" Skipper Zeb announced an hour before midday. "Here's Swile
Island before we knows it! We'll stop for a bit to boil the kettle and
stretch our legs ashore."
Swile Island was a small, nearly round island, containing an area equal
to about that of a city block. Its center rose to a small hill, covered
by a stunted growth of black spruce trees, which somehow clung to its
rocky surface.
Charley was glad to go ashore, and he soon learned that "to boil the
kettle" meant to prepare and eat luncheon. While Toby carried up from
the boat the food and cooking utensils, Skipper Zeb lighted a fire, and
in a little while the kettle was boiling for tea and a pan of salt pork
sizzling over the coals.
Never in his life had Charley eaten fried salt pork, and Skipper Zeb's
pork contained no streak of lean. He would have left the table without
eating had such a meal been served him in his city home. But here he ate
the pork, with his bread sopped into the grease, and tea sweetened with
molasses, hungrily and with a relish, so quickly had exercise in the
pure, clear air of the wilderness had its effect. Indeed, he was always
hungry now, and could scarcely wait for meal time.
"There were lots of things I'd never eat at home," he said as he passed
his plate for a second helping of pork, "but here I like everything."
"As I were sayin' before, hunger's a rare sauce for vittles," remarked
Skipper Zeb.
A light breeze sprang up while they were eating, and when they made
their departure from Swile Island Skipper Zeb hoisted a leg-o'-mutton
sail, and then sat and smoked his pipe and told stories of experiences
and adventures on the trail, while Toby took the rudder.
It was nearly three o'clock when Skipper Zeb pointed out a little log
hut near the mouth of a small river, and announced:
"There's Black River and there's Black River tilt where we bides
to-night."
A few minutes later the prow of the boat grounded upon a gravelly beach,
and while Skipper Zeb unloaded the cargo the boys carried it to the
tilt, laying it upon spruce boughs broken by Toby to protect it from the
snow.
The tilt was built of logs, with a roof thatched with bark. The door was
not more than four feet in height, and when Skipper Zeb opened it the
three were compelled to stoop low to enter. The interior was a room
about eight by ten feet in size. Across the end opposite the door was a
bunk, and, along the right side of the room as they entered, another
bunk extended from that at the far end to the wall behind the door. On
the left side of the room, and midway between the end bunk and the door
was a sheet-iron tent stove, with a pipe dismantled and lying on top of
it. An old pair of snowshoes, and steel traps, pieces of board shaped
for stretching pelts of various sizes and some simple cooking utensils
hung upon wooden pegs against the wall. The floor was of hard-packed
earth.
"Well, now! Here we be safe and sound and ready for work!" boomed
Skipper Zeb. "Everything snug and fine when we gets our beds made and
the stove set up and a fire in she. Whilst you lads gets boughs for the
beds, I'll be puttin' up the stove and stow the cargo inside."
Toby and Charley went to work with a will, and soon had deep springy
beds laid upon the bunks. Upon the bunk at the farther end they spread
Skipper Zeb's sleeping bag, and side by side, upon the other bunk, their
own. Already Skipper Zeb had a crackling fire in the stove and the
cargo carried in and stowed snugly under the berths.
"Now whilst Toby and I tidy up a bit, put over the kettle, Charley lad,
and we'll have a bite to eat," suggested Skipper Zeb.
Charley took the tin pail that served as a kettle, to fill it at the
river. Just as he had dipped it and was about to return, his eye fell
upon a peculiar looking animal perched upon a branch high up in a spruce
tree. With all speed he ran back to the tilt and called excitedly upon
Toby to come and see it.
"'Tis a porcupine!" exclaimed Toby, grabbing his rifle and following
Charley. "I'll shoot he, and we'll have he for supper!"
And so it proved. A shot brought the animal tumbling down. Toby picked
it up gingerly by a leg and carried it back.
"Well, now! Fresh meat the first night!" boomed Skipper Zeb. "Whilst you
lads tidy the tilt, I'll skin he."
In a few minutes Skipper Zeb had the porcupine skinned and dressed, and
after washing the meat in the river and cutting it into convenient
sections he placed it in a kettle of water to stew for supper.
Two Indian flatsleds or toboggans, which were standing on end against
the tilt, were put into repair by Skipper Zeb and made ready for the
journey on the morrow, and before dark all preparations for an early
departure were completed.
It was snug and cozy now in the tilt, with the fire in the little tent
stove cracking and snapping. The air was spicy sweet with the odour of
the spruce and balsam beds, but to the boys a still more delicious and
appealing odour was given out by the kettle of stewing porcupine on the
stove. Presently when supper was served Charley declared that the meal
more than fulfilled his expectations.
"Why, it makes me think of lamb," he said, "only it's a heap better than
any stewed lamb I ever ate. It's just great!"
"'Twere young and fat," said Skipper Zeb. "We likes porcupine wonderful
well. 'Tis a fine treat _we_ thinks."
Before daybreak the following morning loads were lashed upon the two
flatsleds, and all was made ready for the trail. Snow was not deep
enough to require the use of snowshoes, and they were tied securely upon
the tops of the loads.
"All ready!" announced Skipper Zeb, in his big hearty voice, as dawn
was breaking. "I'll be goin' ahead with the heavy flatsled, and you lads
takes turns haulin' the other. Toby b'y, you take the first turn at un."
"Aye," agreed Toby eagerly, "I'll haul un a spell first."
The route for a time followed the course of Black River. Now and again
Skipper Zeb paused and turned aside to set a trap, where the tracks of
martens or minks indicated their presence. At intervals he took bunches
of a dozen or more traps from trees where he had hung them the previous
spring when the trapping season had ended. Charley wondered how it was
possible for him to remember where he had left them, and asked:
"How do you ever find the traps where you left them? The places all look
alike to me."
"Why, 'tis easy enough, lad. This bunch I hangs in the only hackmatack
tree handy about. I just looks up and sees the tree, and there I finds
the traps just where I leaves un."
Even still Charley could not understand how Skipper Zeb could know where
to look for the particular hackmatack tree, standing alone among the
spruces and quaking aspens, for at several points he saw lone
hackmatacks in similar surroundings. Presently he was to learn that the
woodsman by long practice learns to know every tree or bush that is even
slightly out of the ordinary along his trail, and so trained is he in
the art of observation that his subconscious mind records these with no
effort on his part. Thus to the woodsman the trail over which he has
traveled two or three times, and often but once, becomes as familiar to
him as streets to the city dweller.
After two hours on the trail, Skipper Zeb announced that they would
"boil the kettle," and have a "snack" to eat. Already the boys were
ravenously hungry, and Skipper Zeb chuckled merrily as he observed their
keen enjoyment as they ate.
"Settin' up traps makes for hunger," said he. "Fill up now."
"I was just hollow!" confessed Charley.
"And I was hungrier'n a starved wolf!" added Toby.
Their course now left the river valley, and presently came upon a wide
frozen marsh, or "mesh" as Skipper Zeb called it.
"'Tis here on the meshes we finds the best fox footin'," he explained to
Charley.
It was not long until he found tracks that he said were fox tracks, and
in various places on the marsh set three traps, which were considerably
larger than those set for marten or mink, and had two springs instead of
one, and he used much greater care in setting them than in setting those
for marten and mink. With his sheathknife he cut out a square of snow,
and excavated in the snow a place large enough to accommodate the trap.
Over the trap a thin crust of snow was placed, and so carefully fitted
that its location was hardly discernible. In like manner the chain,
which was attached to the root of a scrubby spruce tree, was also
concealed. From a carefully wrapped package on his flatsled Skipper Zeb
produced some ill-smelling meat, and this he scattered upon the snow
over and around the trap.
"They likes meat that smells bad," he explained, "and I'm thinkin' that
smells bad enough for un."
Evening was falling when suddenly through the forest there glinted the
waters of a lake, and here on its shores Skipper Zeb told them they were
to camp for the night. A home-made cotton tent, small but amply large
enough for the three, was quickly pitched and a tent stove set up. Then
while Toby and Charley gathered boughs and laid the bed, Skipper Zeb cut
a supply of wood for the night, and before the boys had finished the bed
he was frying in the pan a delicious supper of partridges, which he and
Toby had shot during the afternoon.
Charley was sure he had never been so tired in his life. It had been a
long day of steady walking, save for the brief stops when Skipper Zeb
halted to set a trap, and the snow and turns at hauling the flatsled had
made it the harder. He lay back upon his sleeping bag chatting with Toby
and watching Skipper Zeb prepare supper. How cozy and luxurious the tent
was! The pleasant fragrance of spruce and balsam would have put him to
sleep at once, had it not been for the pleasanter fragrance of the
frying partridges and a hunger that increased with every minute.
When the meal was eaten Charley's eyes were so heavy that it was little
short of torture to keep them open, and he slipped into his sleeping
bag, and in an instant had fallen into dreamless, restful sleep.
How long he had been sleeping he did not know, when suddenly he found
himself awake and alert. Something had aroused him, and he sat up and
listened. For a time he heard nothing, save the heavy breathing of
Skipper Zeb and Toby, and he was about to lie down again when there came
the sound of footsteps in the slightly crusted snow outside. Some animal
was prowling cautiously about the tent sniffing at its side. The moon
was shining, and suddenly he saw the shadowy outline, against the
canvas, of a great beast that he knew to be a timber wolf.
He was about to reach over to Skipper Zeb to wake him, when all at once
the stillness was broken by a terrifying, heartrending howl, rising and
falling in mournful cadence, and echoing through the forest behind them.
The howling creature was separated from Charley only by the thickness of
the canvas, and Charley's blood ran cold.