BEAR STEAK FOR BREAKFAST
Without further delay Vaughn cut the throat of one of the dead bears,
that the animal might bleed freely.
"You always should do this as soon as possible, boys," he informed
them. "However, do not make the mistake of going to the animal until
you have put another bullet in his head after you think you have shot
him dead. Claws are dangerous weapons. I will now show you how one
man may hang the bear and do his own work of dressing the beast. Any
one of you could do it, and you may have occasion to do so."
Cale dragged the bear head-foremost to a sapling. He then out three
poles of about ten feet in length, with crotches near the ends. Next
he amazed his pupils by climbing the sapling until it bent down with
him.
"Think I have gone crazy?" smiled the guide.
The boys were too interested to answer.
The top of the sapling was well trimmed off with a hatchet, leaving
the stub of one stout branch near the top. Removing his belt, Vaughn
fastened it around the bear's neck, then slipped the loop over the
end of the sapling which he was holding down with one hand and the
weight of his body. He let go the sapling, which, acting as a sort
of spring pole, raised the carcass slightly.
The crotches of the poles were then placed under the fork of the
sapling, the butts of the poles outward, thus forming a tripod. Cale
next pushed first on one pole, then on the other. With each push the
dead bear was raised a little higher until its body finally was clear
of the ground, and only the hind claws trailing the earth.
"Easy when you know how, isn't it?" he smiled.
The Pony Rider Boys decided that it was.
"Now, in case I were not ready to butcher, I would build a smudge
fire of rotten wood under the carcass, banking the fire well with
stones to keep it from spreading. That would serve to keep away the
blowflies and birds."
Beginning at the head the guide skinned the animal in quick time. He
then removed the entrails, and in a quarter of an hour announced that
his task was completed.
After the carcass got cold, he explained, he would split it in halves
along the backbone and quarter it, leaving one rib on each hind
quarter.
"Aren't we going to have any of it for supper?" wailed Stacy.
"No, indeed. You don't want to eat warm meat, do you?"
"I don't care whether it is warm or cold so long as I get the meat,"
the fat boy made reply.
"That proves it," declared Rector with emphasis.
"Proves what?" demanded Stacy.
"That your early ancestors were cannibals." Chunky snorted
disgustedly.
"Now, do you think you boys could skin and dress a bear?" asked Cale,
surveying his work with critical eyes.
"I think so," replied Tad. "Of course we could not do it as skilfully
as you have done, but we are learning fast. May we save the hide?"
"I am afraid it would be too much of a burden to carry. I'll tell
you what I will do. You see I have cut off the head with the pelt.
I will salt the hide well and cache it, then if I am able to get in
here some day soon, I will take the hide out and have it tanned for
you."
"Thank you. May I try my hand on the other one?" asked Tad.
"You surely may."
Butler was rather clumsy in making his preparations. Twice did the
sapling that he had climbed get away from him and spring up into the
air, but Tad simply climbed the slender young tree again each time
and bent it down. He finally succeeded in slipping his belt over the
crotch after having passed it about the bear's neck. The rest was
easy, so far as raising the bear was concerned.
"There! How is that?" he demanded triumphantly.
"Just as well as I could have done it myself," said Vaughn, nodding
approvingly.
"I thought you always hung them up by the heels," ventured Ned.
"Yes, it is common practice to hang up by the gambrels, with the head
down, but when hung head up the animal is much easier to skin and
butcher, and drains better. Besides, it doesn't drip blood over the
neck and head, which you may want to have mounted at some future
date. Perhaps we had better bury this waste stuff, or we'll have all
the bears in the section down on us first thing we know. By the way,
we shall be having more bear here right along on account of that oil
of anise, so we shall have to move our camp."
"Then make Chunky strike camp," suggested Ned. "He is to blame for
all this trouble."
"I am inclined to agree with your last statement. However, we will
see to that. Charlie will do all the necessary work. I am sorry,
for I wanted to go over and see my friend," said the guide.
"Didn't you go there today?" asked Stacy.
"No, we took another course. You missed it not being along."
"No, I didn't. I had all the fun and excitement I wanted right here
in the camp. You are the ones who missed something," declared Stacy.
"We didn't miss all of the fun, anyway," replied Tad. "How about the
bear meat, Mr. Vaughn?"
"Yes, don't we get any of that meat?" urged Stacy.
"You shall all have all you want for breakfast, but we shan't be able
to carry much of it with us. Were we going to be here long enough I
would smoke some of it. If it were only winter we should have enough
meat to last us for weeks," answered the guide. "In many respects
winter traveling in the woods is very desirable. Ever rough it in
the winter?"
Tad said that they had not, but that they hoped to do so at some time
in the near future.
Supper was a welcome meal that night, for everyone was hungry because
they had had a hard fifteen-mile journey on foot over rugged ground.
Bear steak was served for breakfast. Yes, it was tough, but most of
the party enjoyed it. Stacy ate and ate until they feared he would
pop open, and Ned declared that Chunky would be growling like a bear
before the forenoon came to an end.
Enough meat for two more meals was packed away to carry with them,
after which camp was broken, and before eight o'clock the Pony Rider
Boys were on their way. Their trail led them farther and farther
into the dense forests. Vaughn had it in mind to make their next
camp on the shores of a lake, where he thought that they might find
something to interest them. The boys were willing. They were not
particular where they went. It was all alike to some of them, ever
new to others. Stacy cared only for what he found to eat, while Tad
and Ned were for learning all they could about the woods and
woodcraft, in all of which Cale Vaughn was an expert.
Charlie John was proving himself a most useful man in the camp,
though Charlie was not to be depended upon when it came to fighting
bear. He had proved another thing, too. He was an excellent tree
climber and could make the first limbs of a tree quicker than any
other member of the party, especially when there was a bear below
anxious to get a nip at the Indian's calves. They made their new
camping place some hours before dark. Charlie already had picked out
a pleasant camp site, a short distance from the shore of the little
lake, screened by trees and foliage, but in plain view of the water.
The natural instinct of the Indian had taught him to so place his
camp that it could not be readily seen from either the lake itself or
from the surrounding country. This trait will be found in the white
woodsman as well, copying perhaps an instinct inherent in his animal
ancestor of a few million years back.
"Now," said the guide, after the boys had pitched their tents, "we
haven't had a real lesson in preparing a cooking fire. I observe
that you boys go at it in a sort of hit and miss way. You may have
observed something of the woodsman's way of cooking by the manner in
which Charlie fixed the fire in our camp yesterday."
"Yes, we did," answered Tad.
"I will go more into detail this time. The fire is more than half of
good cookery in the woods, just as it is in your home kitchens. You
need a small fire, free from smoke and flame, with coals or dry twigs
in reserve. There must be a way of regulating the heat just as in
stoves, and there must be a rampart around the fire on which pots and
pans will stand level and at the right elevation. Master Stacy, will
you please fell a small, straight tree and cut from it two logs about
six feet long, eight or ten inches thick?"
_"What?"_
The guide repeated his request.
Chunky hemmed and hawed.
"The fact is, Mr. Vaughn, I've got a weak heart. I'm afraid it would
excite me too much to do that. You see I have to be very careful."
"I will cut down the tree," said Ned, stepping forward.
"Yes, perhaps it would overtax Master Stacy. There is a good tree
for the purpose just beyond where the Professor is standing, Master
Ned," nodded Cale.
Ned took up the axe and attacked the tree with vigorous blows. He
had taken but a few of these when the axe flew from the helve,
narrowly missing the Professor's head.
"Here, here!" cried the Professor. "What are you trying to do?"
"That was an axe-i-dent," chuckled the fat boy.
"Stop it!" yelled Ned.
"I agree with you," grinned the guide. "That was almost more than I
could stand myself."
"I shall forget myself and hit you with this axe helve if you get off
anything like that again, Stacy Brown," threatened Ned Rector.
"Bad, very bad," agreed the Professor.
"Shocking," nodded Tad.
In the meantime Cale was wedging the axe on the helve. Having
completed his task he handed the axe back to Rector, who, a few
moments later, sent the tree crashing down.
"I guess you have handled an axe before," said Vaughn.
"Yes. He is the champion wood-splitter of our town," Stacy informed
him.
Cale flattened the top and one side of each log with the axe after
Tad had finished Ned's job. These, the bed logs, the guide placed
side by side, flat sides toward each other, about three inches apart
at one end and some eight or ten at the other. By this time Charlie
had gathered a supply of bark and hard wood which he placed from end
to end between the bed pieces and lighted the fire.
While Charlie John was doing this, Cale planted at each end of the
fire a forked stake about four feet high. Over these he laid a
lug-pole or cross-stick of green wood. Two or three green crotches
from branches were cut, a nail driven in the small end of each, and
the contrivance hung on the lug-pole from which to suspend the
kettles. These pot-hooks were of different lengths for hard boiling
or for simmering.
"These are 'lug-sticks,'" explained Vaughn. "A hook for lifting the
kettles is a 'hook-stick.' I'll make some of those as soon as I
finish with what I am doing now. In quick camp-making we sharpen a
stick and drive it into the ground at an angle, and from this we
suspend our kettle. That kind of arrangement up here in the Maine
Woods is called a 'wambeck' or 'spygelia.'"
"Sounds like the name of a patent medicine," observed Chunky.
"I agree with you," smiled the guide.
"How did it get such an outlandish name?" questioned the Professor.
"I am sure I don't know. Oh, you will find lots of funny names up
here in the wilds. For instance, the frame built over a cooking fire
is called by the Penobscots, 'kitchi-plak-wagn.' Some others call
the 'lug-stick' a 'chiplok-waugan.'"
"Taken from 'chipmunk wagon,'" nodded the fat boy wisely.
"No doubt," replied the guide dryly. "Some of the guides have changed
it to 'waugan-stick.'"
"You make me dizzy," declared Stacy Brown, passing a hand over his
eyes.
"Then here is another for you that will render you wholly
unconscious," went on Cale. "The gypsies call a pot-hook a
'kekauviscoe saster.' How is that?"
"Oh, help!" moaned the fat boy.
"I should say that was about the end of the limit," declared Tad
Butler.
"In windy weather, or where fuel is scarce," continued Cale, "it is
best to dig a trench eighteen inches wide, twelve inches deep and say
four feet long, instead of cutting down a tree for your bed logs.
Make a chimney of flat stones or sod at the leeward end. This will
give you a good draft."
"We did something like that in the Rockies," Tad informed him.
"Build a fire in this trench with fire-irons or green sticks laid
across it for the fryingpan and a frame above for the kettles, and
there you are. I'd like to see any kitchen do any better."
"I guess we never knew very much about camping," said Tad.
"We know how to eat," asserted Stacy.
"At least one of us does," agreed Rector.
"Know how to make a bake-oven?" questioned Cale.
"Hot stones are as near as I have come to making anything of that
sort," replied Tad.
"I won't show you now because we are in a hurry for our supper, but
some day, when we have nothing in particular to do, I will make one
and we will bake some bread that you will say is the equal of
anything you ever had at home. How is that steak coming on,
Charlie?"
"Him smell like him done," answered the Indian.
"Serve it up. We are ready for it. Master Stacy is so hungry that
he has shrunk to half his natural size."
"I'll be a skeleton if I keep on," agreed the fat boy.
A steaming, savory meal was served there in the great forest with the
odor of the pines mingling with those of bear steak and boiling
coffee. To these hungry boys it seemed that nothing ever had tasted
so good to them in all their lives. And they did full justice to the
meal, too.