ON SHADOW RIVER.
The long awaited canoe trip, which had been put off "until Gladys
learned to swim," had at last become a reality, and bright and
early one morning the Winnebagos started off on a fifteen-mile
paddle up the Shadow River. Sahwah led the procession in the
_Keewaydin_, uttering shouts which she fondly believed to be in
imitation of an Indian warrior. Her new hunting knife hung at
one side of her belt, her own hatchet on the other, while the
rest of the space was decorated with her Wohelo knife and a
string of enormous safety pins with which to pin her blankets
together. In the bottom of the canoe reposed her rifle. Nyoda
had to turn her head away to hide a smile when she saw the
outfit. Sahwah looked like a floating cutlery store. Just why
she should elect to impersonate a brave instead of an Indian
maiden was not clear to Nyoda, but this was only another
illustration of her whimsical temperament. Part of the time the
stay-at-home duties appealed to her; the care of the hearthfire,
the cooking and cleaning and hand-craft; and then again her
imagination was kindled by tales of scouts and warriors and she
longed for the wild life of the hunter.
Migwan, on the other hand, was the picture of shy, dreamy
girlhood, as she sat in the bottom of the canoe and let herself
be paddled along by two other girls so she might have her hands
free for writing down her impressions of the trip. Describing it
in a letter to her mother, she wrote:
"I am packed in like a sardine between the ponchos and supplies.
Can you imagine me sitting in an inch of water, with one foot
straight up in the air, the other doubled under somebody's
poncho, and scarcely daring to breathe for fear of disturbing the
balance, placidly doing beadwork? It is quite an accomplishment
to thread a needle in a pitching canoe, but every one has
mastered the art."
The trip up the Shadow River was ideally beautiful. The scenery
was still wild and natural, and the foliage very dense. Many of
the trees along the banks had four or five trunks, and leaned far
out over the water, making the shadows which gave the river its
name. A crane, startled by the approach of the canoes, rose in
wheeling flight over their heads. The willows waved their
feathery boughs in the sun and gleamed bright against the dark
background of the pines. Migwan noted down the different
contours of the trees, how the elms spread out wide at the top,
how the pines tapered to a point, how the maples spread out
irregularly. A flock of wild ducks passed them. In some places
the banks of the river were honeycombed by the holes of bank
swallows. A turtle, sitting on a half-sunken log, stretched his
neck and looked after them as long as he could see them. All
these things Migwan saw and set down in her book with a quiet
enjoyment.
A ripple of excitement ran through the girls as they saw, far in
the distance, the big river steamer approaching. "Shall we land
until it has passed?" called Sahwah.
"We can't land here," answered Nyoda, "the banks are nothing but
mud and slime. Come in as close to shore as possible, and keep
paddling so the waves from the steamer won't swamp you." The big
passenger boat nearly filled the river from bank to bank, but she
came very slowly and the waves she made did not amount to much
after all. The people on board ran to the rail with their
cameras to snapshot the three canoes full of girls--a birchbark
canoe ahead bearing the huntress with her rifle; a big green
canoe next packed with ponchos and supplies, followed by a canoe
with sails, at the top of which floated the Winnebago banner.
Sahwah saluted with her paddle as she passed; the other girls
waved their handkerchiefs in friendly greeting.
Farther up the river there were rapids and the paddling became
strenuous indeed. The sails had to come down from the sailing
canoe, and the crew, who had been having an easy time, of it, had
to bend to their paddles with all their might. Going through a
rapid requires short, hard strokes in swift succession, to make
any headway at all, and more than once a canoe was whirled around
in the rushing water and hurled back downstream. Sahwah was
having a great time. She pretended that she was in the rapids of
the Niagara, paddling for her life, and put forth such strenuous
efforts that she soon left the others behind.
The girls were so tired by the time they reached calm waters
again that Nyoda ordered them to land on a low green bank and
rest for an hour. They built a fire and cooked their dinner and
then stretched themselves in the shade of a large oak tree for a
nap. As far as the eye could see on every side there was no
trace of a human being; no house, no boat, no cultivated land.
It was as though they had stepped back a hundred years and were
in the midst of the primeval forest of song and story. Migwan
lay on her back in lazy contentment, watching the sunshine filter
through the leaves. Idly she drew out her pencil and began
scribbling words in her notebook:
"Underneath this spreading tree,
Let us rest luxuriously;
And caressed by breezes mild,
And with song of birds beguiled,
Interweave our bright day dream
With a tale of wondrous theme."
"Up, up, comrades," cried Nyoda, rising and returning to her
canoe. All through the lovely golden afternoon they paddled
steadily upstream, and just about sunset landed on a low green
meadow that ran down to the water's edge. Behind the tiny plain
the woods grew high and dark. Sahwah, watching the other girls
picking out their sleeping sites for the night, had an inspiration.
"May I sleep out in the _Keewaydin_ to-night?" she asked Nyoda.
"Why, yes," said Nyoda, "if you will tie it securely to a tree.
The current is pretty strong." They lingered long around the
camp fire that night, telling stories and watching the moon rise
over the treetops. None of them had ever experienced that
feeling of being so absolutely by themselves. Quiet and
unmolested as Camp Winnebago was, it seemed the center of
civilization compared to this. Migwan, who was in a poetical
mood, made up a new Camp Fire song and taught it to the girls:
"Lofty pine tree, old and grim,
With the horned moon hooked round the topmost limb,
And the owl awatch on the branch below,
What is the song of the winds that blow
Through your boughs so mysteriously?
They sing a song of the wide green world,
Of the leaves in the merry breezes whirled,
And rustle and murmur and moan and sigh
Of the storm that darkened the sunny sky,
And the ship that was lost at sea.
Lofty pine tree, lone and grim,
With the moon peering over the topmost limb,
And the owl asleep on the branch below,
What is the song of the winds that blow
Through your twigs so caressingly?"
Before rolling into their beds they all went for a moonlight swim
in the river, which each girl declared to be the most wonderful
experience of her life. No outdoor bed is quite so comfortable
as a grassy meadow and the Winnebagos settled themselves with
sighs of contentment. In her letter to her mother, Migwan wrote:
"I have never seen such cloud pictures as I saw that night. Once
it looked as if a black-robed priest were holding the moon before
him like a basin, while a polar bear stood upright beside him,
his paws resting on a carved pillar. Once it seemed as if the
moon were about to enter a vast cavern, at the door of which
stood the figure of a youth with hands outstretched in welcome.
The moon paused before the door but did not enter. The youth
slid to the ground and crouched with head on knee in an attitude
of despair. A gigantic figure stood out in the light. Before
him danced a circle of elves. The figure in the doorway leaned
back and slept. Watching this strange panorama, I fell asleep."
Nyoda awoke before sunrise and sat up to see if the rest were all
right. All those girls sleeping on the ground looked like an
army. She could not help wondering--would it ever come to that
in earnest? Was this semi-military training of the Camp Fire
girls all over the country a prophetic flash? She looked fondly
around at her charges. Hinpoha and Migwan were sleeping together
and the bed would hardly hold them. Both were still sound asleep
and both mechanically swatting mosquitoes in their sleep. At the
foot of her own bed the Winnebago banner was stuck into the
ground, keeping silent guard. Gladys's bed had come apart and
her bare feet were sticking out between the ponchos.
Nyoda lay back for another nap to waken when the rising sun shone
in her face. She sat up again and this time she beheld a curious
sight. One of the ponchos, tied up in a long roll, suddenly rose
in the air, and after waving back and forth like a pendulum,
slowly descended. Smothered giggles burst from the beds about.
Again the phenomenon occurred. Nyoda jumped up suddenly.
Seizing the poncho, she shook it, and a head appeared at the
bottom end. It was Hinpoha. The girls had rolled her into her
poncho and tied it up, and she was lying on the ground with her
legs in the air when Nyoda first spied her. It was two hours
before rising time but the girls were all wide awake and ready
for larks. They sat up in bed and began to throw shoes at each
other, until Nyoda, in sheer self-defense, blew the rising bugle.
The river was hidden from the girls by a heavy fringe of willows,
and Sahwah had not joined in the early morning frolic. When she
did not appear at the sound of the bugle Nyoda went down to call
her. There was no sign of the _Keewaydin_. Nyoda knew well that
Sahwah would not have paddled off by herself without saying
anything. The canoe had broken away and floated downstream while
she was asleep! Calling Hinpoha to come and paddle bow, Nyoda
launched a canoe and started in pursuit. A great fear tugged at
her heart. The rapids! The first one was not three miles down.
What if Sahwah should not wake up in time to see her danger!
With powerful strokes she sent the canoe flying downstream.
Fifteen anxious minutes passed and then they saw the _Keewaydin_
floating merrily along ahead of them, with the rope trailing out
behind it and Sahwah still sound asleep in the bottom. They
caught the runaway and Sahwah sat up in great surprise. "Sahwah,"
said Nyoda severely, "is that the best hitch-knot you can tie?
You come back to camp and tie fifty secure hitch-knots before you
get a bite of breakfast!"
Migwan, fully dressed, stood on the bank of the river admiring
the scenery. Without moment's warning the ground gave way under
her feet and she tumbled headlong into the water. It was only up
to her waist, but the suddenness of the slide took her breath
away and she blinked dazedly at the laughing girls. Recovering
herself, however, she asked them to throw her her toothbrush, as
she might as well finish her toilet while she had the water so
handy!
An instant later Gladys was in trouble. "Watch me dive!" she
called, and sprang from the bank. The water was shallow and the
bottom soft, and her head stuck fast in the mud while her feet
waved in the air. She was rescued from her uncomfortable
position, her face and hair plastered with mud. Next, Hinpoha,
swimming under water with the swift current, struck her head
against a log and emerged with a great bruise. Nyoda, trying to
get the pancake batter ready for breakfast, was nearly distracted
with this swift succession of accidents. "Every one of you come
here and sit in a row beside me," she commanded, "and the first
one that causes any excitement until breakfast is over will get
spanked!"
"What a lovely cave!" exclaimed Migwan later when they were
exploring the woods. "It's a regular witch's cave. Nyoda, won't
you dress up like a witch to-night and tell our fortunes?" Nyoda
consented and the girls scoured the woods for hanging moss to
decorate the cave, and for pine cones to build a charmed fire.
They were busily transforming the bare rocks into a green
tapestried chamber, when Sahwah came up, crying as if her heart
would break, carrying in her arms a dead wild duck.
"What's the matter?" asked Nyoda in alarm.
"I shot it!" sobbed Sahwah.
"But that's nothing to cry about," said Nyoda, "don't you know
that wild ducks are game birds? It's a bit out of season and you
mustn't shoot any more, but I must congratulate you on your aim."
Sahwah was a living riddle to her. Fearless as an Indian in the
woods and possessing the skill with a rifle to bring down a bird
on the wing, she was so tender-hearted that she could not bear to
think of having killed any living thing! Nyoda bade her cheer up
and pluck the fowl for roasting, and the girls danced for joy at
the thought of the feast in store for them. They left off
decorating the cave and went to constructing a stone oven in
which to cook the bird. It was a bit scorched on the outside
when done, but the meat was so tender it nearly fell apart.
Sahwah, who at first wanted to bury the martyr with full honors,
changed her mind when she smelled the savory odor and enjoyed the
dinner as much as the rest.
When night fell the girls repaired one by one to the cave in the
woods to have their fortunes read. Nyoda, clad in her gray
bathrobe in lieu of a witch's cloak, trimmed with streamers of
ground pine, and with a high-peaked hat with a pine tassel on
top, was a weird figure as she bent over the low fire stirring
her kettle and muttering incantations. She read such amazing
things in the extended palms that the Truth Seekers' eyes began
to pop out of their heads. The grinning, toothless old hag
(Nyoda had blackened all her teeth but one), was so realistic
that they had to look closely to make sure that it was their
beloved friend and not a real witch.
Near by Sahwah and Hinpoha were conducting a "Turkish Bath" for
the entertainment of the girls who were through having their
fortunes told. They had built a shelter of ponchos and had a fire
going. They heated small stones red hot and then plunged them
into a pail of water. The resulting steam heated the tiny
chamber and threw the patients into a dripping perspiration,
which limbered up their muscles, which were stiff from paddling.
They took the "Turkish Bath" in their bathing suits and went into
the river immediately afterward so as not to take cold. Nyoda
was the last customer, and helped take down the ponchos, and as
Sahwah and Hinpoha had their beds to make up she sent Migwan to
put out the fire. Instead of putting it out immediately Migwan
sat down to dream fire dreams, until Nyoda called her to come to
bed. Hastily scattering the fire brands with her feet she ran in
obedience to Nyoda's call, and the camp was soon wrapped in
slumber.
In the place where the fire had been a tiny spark lay on a dry
leaf. Soon there was only a little curl of smoke where the leaf
had been, and the spark looked around for another leaf to eat up.
He found it and then put his teeth into a pine cone. From a tiny
spark he had grown to a hungry flame. The pine cone crackled and
snapped and jumped into a dry pine tree that lay nearby. In a
few minutes the twigs were burning merrily and the flame was
twice as big as when Sahwah was heating stones. Then the wind
came along and carried a flock of sparks into another dry tree,
and that one outdid the other and made a still bigger blaze! The
ground was covered with dry sticks and pine cones and the fire
leaped along with giant strides. Then it did a cruel thing. It
caught hold of a living pine tree and thrust its fiery tongues
deep into its bark. After that it took no heed whether a tree
was living or dead. Whole families of tender green needles
blazed up together, and when they fled into the arms of their
relatives for shelter started them blazing too.
Nyoda, waking suddenly from a dream, sat up and saw the glare in
the woods, and blew the alarm call on the bugle. In an instant
the girls were awake and saw what was the matter. Getting
quickly into their bloomers and sweaters instead of white middies
they dipped into the river to get wet all over and then ran for
the blazing woods. The fire was spreading alarmingly through the
underbrush, and Nyoda set half the girls to clearing away the dry
wood in the path of the flames while the others threw water into
the blazing trees and beat the fire with wet ponchos. Sahwah
worked like a Trojan with her hatchet, cutting down young trees
bodily and hurling them out of the way. Every now and then a
shower of blazing pine needles would envelop the workers and if
it had not been for their wet clothes and hair they would have
been in constant peril of blazing up themselves. It took several
hours of the liveliest fighting before the last spark was
extinguished and the danger past.
"Now then," said Nyoda when they had washed their blackened hands
and faces, "who had charge of putting out the camp fire last
night?"
"I did," said Migwan in a small voice.
"You, a Fire Maker!" said Nyoda, unbelievingly. That was all she
said, but Migwan crept away, overwhelmed with shame. The
privilege of tending the fire was counted an honor among the
Winnebagos. To let a fire go out that you had been set to watch,
or to leave a fire not properly extinguished was a disgrace.
Migwan learned an effective lesson that night about the
consequences of dreaming when she should have been doing.
Nyoda thought that the girls would be tired out the next morning
after their strenuous midnight exercise, and planned to let them
sleep several hours later than usual. But at the first
appearance of the sun on the river they were wide awake and
impatient to get up. Pulling downstream seemed like play after
having come up, and going through the rapids with the current was
a delirious delight. All that was necessary was to keep the
canoe headed straight. Migwan paddled on the trip home and
Hinpoha sat in the bottom of the boat doing beadwork. "Hi, you,
up in front," called the girls in the sailing canoe, "look at the
way the wind is filling out our sails." Hinpoha turned to look,
and shifted her weight, which was considerable, to the side of
the canoe. The result was inevitable and in a moment the three
girls were in the river. The water was not very deep here and
they were able to touch bottom. Migwan and Gladys set to work
righting the canoe and fishing out the ponchos. The current
caught Hinpoha's bead loom and it went sailing merrily downstream,
with Hinpoha in hot pursuit. The girls shouted as they watched her.
"How did you happen to tip over?" asked Nyoda, when they were
back in the canoe and the line had proceeded again. "I just
looked back to see your sails," said Hinpoha, "like this." She
craned her neck back to show Nyoda what she had done, and Presto!
over went the canoe again. "Isn't the water delicious?" she
cried, lazily swimming in with a poncho in tow.
"Let's all go in," said Sahwah, "we have our bathing suits on
anyway." Nyoda gave the word, and the girls hopped into the
water like frogs, swam around for a while and then got back into
the canoes, where the sun soon dried their bathing suits.
And so they paddled on, mile after mile, singing, laughing,
talking, following the winding course of the river down to its
mouth, and back into the wide waters of Loon Lake, toward the
camp which they had come to speak of as "home." The boys of
Mountain Lake Camp, having their swimming hour, saw the three
canoes passing out in the lake and heard the song of the girls
floating in on the wind, as their voices kept time to the dipping
of their paddles:
"Oh, the laughing life,
Oh, the joyous strife
As my paddlers, struggling, bend low,
And the big rocks sing
To the River King,
And the waters forever flow!"