"When a man begins talkin' 'bout himself, it seems as tho'
he'd never run down."--Old Cy Walker.
All fellow-sojourners in the wilderness awaken keen interest, and the
unbroken silence and solitude of a boundless forest make a fellow human
being one we are glad to accost.
A party of lumbermen wielding axes causes one to turn aside and call on
them. A sportsman's camp seen on a lake shore or near a stream's bank
always invites a landing to interview whoever may be there.
All this interest was now felt by Old Cy and Ray, and with it an added
sense of danger. No friendly hunter or trapper would thus ignore them
in the woods. This piratically minded thief must have seen them, for
the spruce-clad oval, perhaps half a mile in width, was comparatively
free from undergrowth where they had been working. He had crossed it
within fairly open sight of them, had found the otter hanging from a
limb, had taken it, and thence on to rob their canoe, daub it with that
hideous emblem, world-wide in meaning, and then had gone on his way.
Almost could Old Cy see him watching them from behind trees, skulking
along when their backs were turned, a low, contemptible thief.
Old Cy knew that bordering this oval ridge on its farther side was a
swamp, that a stream flowed through it, and surmising that this fellow
might have come up or down this stream, he left their cabin prepared
for a two or three days' sojourn away from it, which meant that food,
blankets, and simple cooking utensils must be taken along.
No halt was made to visit traps. Old Cy was trailing bigger game now;
and when the point where they had left the canoe the day previous was
reached, the canoe was pulled out on the stream's bank, the rifles only
taken, and the trailing began. He followed up the brook valley a little
way, to find that only one track came down; he then circled about the
canoe, until, like a hound, he found where the clearly defined trail left
the swamp again.
Here in the soft carpet under the spruce trees one could follow this
trail on the run, and here also Old Cy found where this enemy had halted
beside trees evidently while watching them, as the tracks indicated.
When the bordering swamp was reached, the trail turned in a westerly
direction, skirting thus for half a mile, and here, also, evidences of
skulking along were visible.
Another trail was now come upon, but leading directly over the ridge,
and just beyond this juncture both the trails now joined, entered the
swamp, and ended at a lagoon opening out from the stream. Here, also,
evidences of a canoe having been hauled up into the bog were visible.
"That sneakin' pirate come up this stream," Old Cy observed to Ray, as
the two stood looking at these unmistakable signs. "He left his canoe
here 'n' crossed the ridge above us 'n' down to whar we left the
otter 'n' on to our canoe. Then he come back the way we follered,
'n' my idee is he had his eye on us most o' the time. I callate he
has been laughin' ever since at what we'd say when we found that mud
daub on our canoe, durn him!"
But their canoe was now a half-mile away, and for a little time Old Cy
looked at the black, currentless stream and considered. Then he glanced
up at the sun.
"I've a notion we'd best fetch our canoe over here," he said at last,
"an' follow this thief a spell farther. We may come on to suthin'."
"Won't he shoot at us?" returned Ray, more impressed by this possible
danger than was Old Cy.
"Wal, mebbe and mebbe not," answered the old man. "Shootin's a game
two kin play at, an' we've jist ez good a right to foller the stream
ez he has."
But when their canoe had been carried over and launched in this lagoon,
Ray's spirits rose. It was an expedition into new waters, somewhat
venturesome, and for that reason it appealed to him.
Then they had two rifles, Old Cy had taught him to shoot, he had already
killed one deer and some smaller game, and the go-west-and-kill-Indian
impulse latent in all boys was a part of Ray's nature. Besides, he had
an unbounded faith in Old Cy's skill with the rifle.
And now began a canoe journey into and through a vast swamp, the upland
border of which could scarce be seen. The stream they followed was black,
and so absolutely motionless that it was a guess which way they were
going. The mingled hack-matack and alder growth along each bank was so
dense that no view ahead could be seen, and they must merely follow the
winding pathway of dark waters and hope to come out somewhere.
For two hours they paddled along this serpentine highway, and then the
vastness of this morass began to impress them. No sign of current had
been met. All view of the spruce-grown upland they had left was obscured
by distance. Now and then a dead tree, bleached and spectral, marked a
turn in the stream, and hundreds of them, rising all about above the low
green tangle, added a ghostly haze. It was as if they were venturing into
a new world--a boundless morass, covered by an impenetrable tangle, and
made grewsome by the bleaching trunks of dead trees.
"I'm goin' to find which way we're goin'," Old Cy exclaimed at
last, as they neared a small dead cedar that pointed out over the stream,
and seizing a projecting limb of this, he broke off bits of dry twigs,
and tossed them into the stream. For a long moment not one stirred, and
then at last a movement backward could be discovered.
"We're goin' up-stream, anyhow," he added, glancing at the sun, now
marking mid-afternoon; "but we've got to git out o' this 'fore dark,
or we'll be in a bad fix, an' hev to sleep in the canoe."
No halt for dinner had yet been made. They were both faint from need of
food, and so Old Cy reached for a small wooden pail containing their sole
supply of provisions. Neither was it a luxurious repast which was now
eaten. A couple of hard-tacks munched by each and moistened with a cup
of this swamp water and a bit of dried deer meat was all, and then Old
Cy lit his pipe, dipped his paddle handle in the stream, and once more
they pushed on. Soon a low mound of hard soil rose out of the tangle
just ahead, an oasis in this unvarying mud swamp, and gaping at them
from amid its cover of scrub birch and cedar stood a deadfall. It faced
them as they neared this small island, and with log upraised between
a pen of stakes it much resembled the open mouth of a huge alligator.
"Hain't been built long," Old Cy exclaimed, after they had landed to
examine it. "I've a notion it's the doin's of our pirate friend,
an' he's trappin' round about this swamp. He's had good luck lately,
anyhow, for he's got six o' our pelts to add to his string."
From here onward signs of human presence in this swamp became more
visible. Now and then an opening cut through the limbs of a lopped-over
spruce was met; a spot where drift had been pushed aside to clear the
stream was found at one place; signs of a canoe having been nosed into
the bog grass were seen; and here were also the same footprints they
had followed.
Another bit of hard bottom was reached, and here again was another
deadfall. Tracks evidently made within a few days were about here,
and tied to its figure-four spindle was a freshly caught brook sucker.
"The scent's gettin' warm," Old Cy muttered, as he examined these
signs of a trapper's presence, and then, mindful of the sun, he paddled
on again.
And now an upland growth of tall spruce was seen ahead, the banks became
in evidence, and a slight current was met. One more long bend in the
stream was followed, then came curving banks and large-bodied spruce.
They were out of the swamp.
Soon a more distinctive current opposed them, a low murmur of running
water came from ahead, and then a pass between two abutting ledges was
entered. Here the stream eddied over sunken rocks, and pushing on, the
forest seemed suddenly to vanish as they emerged from the gloom of this
short canyon, and the next moment they caught sight of a long, narrow
lakelet.
The sun, now almost to the tree-tops, cast a reddish glow upon its placid
surface, and so welcome a change was it from the ghostly, forbidding
swamp just left, that Old Cy halted their canoe at once to look out upon
it. It was seemingly a mile long, but quite a narrow lake. A bold, rocky
shore rising in ledges faced them just across, and extended along
that side, back of these a low, green-clad mountain, to the right,
and at the end of this lanelike lake a bolder, bare-topped cliff was
outlined clear and distinct.
This strip of water, for it was not much more, seemingly filled an oblong
gorge in these mountains, only one break in them, to the left of this
bare peak; and as Old Cy urged their canoe out of the alder-choked
stream, now currentless once more, a margin line of rushes and reeds
was seen to form that shore. Back of these, also, rose the low ledge
they had passed.
"Looks like a good hidin' spot fer a pirate," he exclaimed, glancing
up and down the smiling lakelet. "Thar ain't many folks likely to
tackle that swamp--it took us 'most all day to cross it. I'll bet
no lumberman ever tried it twice, 'n' if I wanted to git absolutely
'way from bein' molested, I'd locate here. I dunno whether we'd
best cross 'n' make camp 'mong them ledges, or go back into the woods.
Guess we'd best go back 'n' take a sneak round behind the ledge. I
noticed a loggin[1] leadin' up that way 'fore we left the swamp."
But now something was discovered that proved Old Cy's wisdom, for as
they, charmed somewhat by the spot, yet feeling it forbidding, still
glanced up and down the bold shore just across, suddenly a thin column
of smoke rose from away to the right, amid the bare ledges.
First a faint haze, rising in the still air, then a burst of white,
until the fleecy pillar was plainly outlined as it ascended and drifted
backward into the green forest.
------
[Footnote 1: Lagoon.]