Establish a fishery--Build a boat--Neils becomes morbid--I watch him.
The next thing was to establish a fishery.
The buffalo might fail us, and so might the fish, but we must try
both; and as I happened to be the only one in our party who knew
anything about nets and fishing, this work came to me. So I began to
overhaul what nets Mr. Woolsey had, and went to work mending and
fixing them up.
About twenty-five miles north of us was a lake, in which a species of
white-fish were said to abound, and our plan was to make a road out
to that and give it a fair trial.
In the meantime, because of an extra soaking I got in a rain storm, I
had a severe attack of inflammation, and, to use another western
phrase, had a "close call." But Mr. Woolsey proved to be a capital
nurse and doctor combined. He physicked, and blistered, and
poulticed for day and night, and I soon got better, but was still
weak and sore when we started for the lake.
I took both Glad and Neils with me, our plan being to saw lumber and
make a boat, and then send Glad back, and Neils and I go on with the
fishing.
Behold us then started, the invalid of the party on horseback, and
Glad and Neils each with an axe in hand, and leading an ox on whose
back our whole outfit was packed--buffalo lodge tents, bedding,
ammunition, kettles, cups, whip-saw, nails, tools, everything we must
have for our enterprise.
These oxen had never been packed before, and were a little frisky
about it, and several times made a scattering of things before they
settled down to steady work.
[Illustration: THE START TO THE FISHERY]
We had to clear out a great deal of the way, and to find this way
without any guide or previous knowledge of the place; but our
frontier instinct did us good service, and early the third day we
came out upon the lake, a beautiful sheet of water surrounded by high
forest-clad hills.
We had with us ten large sleigh dogs, and they were hungry, and for
their sakes as well as our own, we hardly got the packs and saddles
off our animals when we set to work to make a raft, manufacturing
floats and tie-stones, and preparing all for going into the water.
Very soon we had the net set; then we put up our lodge, and at once
erected a saw-pit, and the men went to work to cut lumber for the
boat we had to build.
Before long, in looking out to where we had set the net, I saw that
all the floats had disappeared under the water. This indicated that
fish were caught, and I got on the raft and poled out to the net. My
purpose was to merely overhaul it, and take the fish out, leaving the
net set; but I very soon saw that this was impossible. I must take
up the net as it was, or else lose the fish, for they would flop off
my raft as fast as I took them out of the net; so I went back to the
end of the net and untied it from the stake, and took in the whole
thing.
[Illustration: A BIG HAUL]
Fortunately the net was short and the lake calm, for presently I was
up to my knees in water, and fish, a living, struggling, slimy mass,
all around me, so that my raft sank below the surface quite a bit.
Fortunately, the fish were pulling in all possible contrary
directions, for if they had swam in concert, they could have swum
away with my raft and myself. As it was, I poled slowly to the
shore, and shouted to my men to come to the rescue, and we soon had
landed between two and three hundred fish--not exactly, but very
nearly white-fish. As to quality, not first-class by any means;
still, they would serve as dog food, and be a guarantee from
starvation to man.
We had found the lake. We had found the fish, and now knew them to
be plentiful; so far, so good. After the dogs were fed and the fish
hung up, and the net drying, I began to think that I was running the
risk of a relapse. So I took my gun and started out along the lake
to explore, and make myself warm with quick walking. I went to the
top of a high hill, saw that the lake was several miles long, shot a
couple of fall ducks, and came back to the camp in a glow; then
changed my wet clothes, and was apparently all right.
While the men were sawing lumber, and chopping trees, and building
the boat, I was busy putting up a stage to hang fish on, and making
floats and tying stones, and getting everything ready to go to work
in earnest when the boat was finished.
This was accomplished the fourth day after reaching the lake, and
Glad took the oxen and horse and went back to Mr. Woolsey.
Neils and I set our net and settled down to fishing in good style.
We soon found that the lake abounded in worms, or small insects, and
these would cling to the net, and if the net was left long in the
water, would destroy it, so we had to take it up very often; and this
with the drying and mending and setting of nets, and making of sticks
and hanging of fish, kept us very busy. So far north as we were, and
down in the valley, with hills all around us, and at the short-day
season, our days were very short, and we had to work a lot by
camp-fire, which also entailed considerable wood-cutting.
Our isolation was perfect. We were twenty-five miles from Mr.
Woolsey; he and Glad were sixty from White-fish Lake and 120 from
Edmonton, and both of these places were out of the world of mail and
telegraph connection, so our isolation can be readily imagined.
Many a time I have been away from a mission or fort for months at a
time, and as I neared one or other of these, I felt a hungering for
intelligence from the outside or civilized world; but to my great
disgust, when I did reach the place, I found the people as much in
the dark as myself.
But this isolation does not agree with some constitutions, for my
Norwegian Neils began to become morbid and silent, and long after I
rolled myself in my blanket he would sit over the fire brooding, and
I would waken up and find him still sitting as if disconsolate. At
last I asked him what was the matter, when he told me it was not
right for us to be there alone. "You take your gun and go off. If a
bear was to kill you?" (We had tracked some very big ones.) "You
will go out in the boat when the lake is rough; if you were to drown,
everybody would say, 'Neils did that--he killed him.'" On the
surface I laughed at him, but in my heart was shocked at the fellow,
and said, "If anything was to happen to you, would not people think
the same of me? We are in the same boat, Neils, but we will hope for
the best, and do our duty. So long as a man is doing his duty, no
matter what happens, he will be all right. You and I have been sent
here to put up fish; we are trying our best to do so; let us not
borrow trouble."
For a while Neils brightened up, but I watched him.