Here where deer were plentiful and hunters scarce, Mac's jack light
should prove effective. Sportsmen and the law have quite properly
united in condemning killing deer by jack light; but the boys felt that
their need of food justified their course.
After adjusting the torch, Mac cut a birch sapling about eight feet
long, and trimmed off the twigs. Bending it into a semicircle, he
fitted the curve into the bottom of the canoe, close to the bow; then
he hung the blanket by its corners upon the projecting tips of the
sapling, and thus screened the bow from the rest of the canoe.
As it had already become dark, and the shores were now black with the
indistinct shadows of the spruces, Fred and Horace set the canoe gently
into the water. When it was afloat, Mac lighted the pine splinters,
which crackled and flared up like a torch.
"You'd make a better game poacher than I, Horace," he said. "You take
the rifle, and I'll paddle."
Horace accordingly placed himself just behind the blanket screen, with
the weapon on his knees. Mac sat in the stern, and Fred, who did not
want to be left behind, seated himself amidships.
"Keep a sharp lookout, both of you," Mac said. "Watch for the light on
their eyes, like two balls of fire."
The canoe, keeping about thirty yards from shore, glided silently down
the long lake. The "fat" pine flamed smoky and red, and it cast long,
wavering reflections on the water. Once an animal, probably a muskrat,
startled them by diving noisily. A duck, sleeping on the water, rose
with a frantic splutter and flurry of wings. Then, fifty yards
farther, there was a sudden splash near the shore, then a crashing in
the bushes, and a dying thump-thump in the distance.
Horace swung his rifle round, but he was too late. The deer had not
stopped to stare at the light for an instant. A jack light ought to
have a reflector, but the boys had no means of contriving one.
Unspeakably disappointed, they moved slowly on again. They started no
more game, and at last reached the lower end of the lake. Here Mac
stopped to renew the torch, which had almost burned out.
Then they turned up the other side of the lake, on the home stretch.
No living thing except themselves seemed to be on the water that night.
The shore shoaled far out. Once the keel scraped over a bottom of soft
mud. Lilies grew along the shore, and sometimes extended out so far
that the canoe brushed the half-grown pads.
Suddenly Fred felt the canoe swerve slightly, and head toward the land.
Horace raised the rifle. Fred had seen nothing, but after straining
his eyes ahead, he made out two faint spots of light in the darkness,
at about the height of a man's head. Could it be a deer? The balls of
light remained perfectly motionless.
Without a splash the canoe glided closer. Fred thought that he could
make out the outline of the animal's head, and clenched his hands in
anxiety. Why did not Horace shoot?
Suddenly a blinding flash blazed out from the rifle, and the report
crashed across the water. There was a splash, followed immediately by
a noise of violent thrashing in the water near the land.
Fred and Mac shouted together. With great paddle strokes, Mac drove
the canoe forward, and at last Horace leaped out. The others followed
him. The deer was down, struggling in the water. It was dead before
they reached it. Horace's bullet had broken its neck.
"Hurrah!" Fred cried. "This makes us safe. This'll last us all the
way home."
It was a fine young buck--so heavy that they had hard work to lift it
into the canoe. Far up the lake they could see their camp-fire, and
they paddled toward it with the haste of half-starved men.
Without stopping to cut up the animal, they skinned one haunch and cut
off slices, which they set to broil over the coals. A delicious odor
rose; the boys did not even wait until the meat had cooked thoroughly.
They had no salt, but the venison, unseasoned as it was, seemed
delicious.
The food gave them all more cheerfulness and energy. The prospect of a
hard ten days' journey did not look so bad now. At any rate, they
would not starve.
"I wonder if the foxes would eat it. They ought to have something,"
said Fred, and he dropped some scraps of the raw venison into the cage.
As he stooped to peer more closely at the animals, he made a startling
discovery. During their absence on the hunt, the mother fox had been
gnawing vigorously at the willow cage, particularly at the rawhide
lashings that bound the framework together. She had loosened one
corner, and if she had been left alone for another hour, she might have
escaped with her cubs. It gave the boys a bad fright. Mac refastened
the lashings with strips of deer-hide, and strengthened the cage with
more willow withes. But the boys realized that in the future one of
them would have to stand guard over the cage at night.
The foxes refused to touch the raw meat.
"I didn't expect them to eat for the first day or two," said Horace.
"Don't worry. They'll eat in time, when they get really hungry."
"Let's get this buck cut up," said Mac. "It'll soon be moonrise, and
we must be moving."
In order to get more light for their work, they piled pitch pine on the
fire; then they hung the deer on a tree, and began the disagreeable
task of skinning and dressing the animal. When they had finished, they
had a good deerskin and nearly two hundred pounds of fresh meat.
They would gladly have slept now, but the sky was brightening in the
east with the rising moon, and there was no time for rest. No doubt
the trappers were on their trail, somewhere behind them. Hastily the
boys loaded the foxes and the venison into the canoe, and as soon as
the moon showed above the trees paddled down the lake. They soon found
that the moonlight was not bright enough to enable them to run rapids
safely, and they consequently had to make frequent carries. Between
the rapids they shot swiftly down the current, but the river was so
broken that they made no great progress that night.
Northern summer nights are short, and soon after two o'clock the sky
began to lighten. By three o'clock the boys could see well, and they
went on faster, shooting all except the worst stretches of rough water.
Shortly after six o'clock they came out from the Smoke River into the
Missanabie.
"Stop for breakfast?" asked Mac.
"Not here," said Horace. "We must be careful not to mark our trail,
especially at this point. They won't know for sure whether we turned
up the Missanabie or down, and they may make a mistake and lose a lot
of time. A canoe doesn't leave any track, and we mustn't land until we
have to."
Now the hard work of "bucking the river" began again. The Missanabie
had lowered somewhat since the boys had come down it, but it still ran
so strong that they could not make much progress by paddling. Their
canoe poles were far back on the Smoke River, and they did not dare to
land in order to cut others, for in doing so they would mark their
trail.
Straining hard at every stroke, they dug their paddles into the water;
but they made slow work of it. The least carelessness on their part
would cause them to lose in one minute as much as they had gained in
ten.
A stretch of slacker water gave them some respite; but then came a
long, tumbling, rock-strewn rapid.
"We'll have to portage here," said Mac.
"It'll be a long carry," Horace said. "We'd lose a good deal of time
over it. I think we can track her up."
Mac and Horace carried the cage of foxes along the shore to the head of
the broken water, and Fred carried up the guns. Returning to the foot
of the rapid, they prepared to haul the canoe against the stream.
Luckily the tracking-line had always been kept in the canoe. Horace
tied it to the ring in the bow, took the end of the rope and, bracing
himself firmly, waded into the water; Macgregor and Fred, on either
side, held the craft steady.
The bed of the river was very irregular. Sometimes the water was no
more than knee-deep; sometimes it reached their hips. The water was
icy cold, and the rush and roar of the current were bewildering. Once
Mac lost his footing, but he clung to the canoe and recovered himself.
Then, when halfway up the rapid, Horace stepped on an unsteady stone
and plunged down, face forward, into the roaring water.
As the towline slackened, the canoe swung round with a jerk against
Macgregor, and upset him. Fred tried to hold it upright, but the
unstable craft went over like a shot.
Out went the venison and everything else that was in her. Fred made a
desperate clutch at the stern of the canoe, caught it and held on. As
the canoe shot down the rapid, he trailed out like a streamer behind
it. He heard a faint, smothered yell:--
"The venison! Save the meat!"
Almost before he knew it, Fred, half choked, still clinging to the
canoe, drifted into the tail of the rapid. He found bottom there, for
the water was not deep, and managed to right the canoe. By that time
Macgregor had got to his feet, and was coming down the shore to help
Fred. They were both dripping and chilled; but they got into the
canoe, and poling with two sticks, set out to rescue what they could.
They must, above everything else, recover the venison, but they could
see no sign of it. Some distance down the stream they found both
paddles afloat, and they worked the canoe up and down below the rapid.
On a jutting rock they found the deerskin. Finally they came upon one
of the hindquarters floating sluggishly almost under water. They
rescued it joyfully; but although they searched for a long time, they
found no more of the meat.
They had left the axe in the canoe, and it was now somewhere at the
bottom of the river. They could better have spared one of the guns,
but they were thankful that their loss had been no greater.
"If we had left the foxes in the canoe," said Fred, "they'd have been
drowned, sure!"
Horace had waded ashore, and now had a brisk fire going. Fred and
Macgregor joined him, and the three boys stood shivering by the blaze,
with their wet clothes steaming.
"We're well out of it," said Horace, with chattering teeth. "The worst
is the loss of the axe. It won't be easy to make fires from now on."
Once more the problem of supplies loomed dark before the boys. They
had nothing now except the haunch of venison, which weighed perhaps
twenty-five pounds; unless they could pick up more game, that would
have to last them until they reached civilization. However, they were
fairly confident that they could find game soon, and meanwhile they
could put themselves on rations.
"We've marked our trail all right now," said Mac. "These tracks and
this fire will give it away. We may as well portage, after all."
Their clothing was far from dry, but they were afraid to delay longer.
None of them felt like trying to wade up the rapid again, and so they
carried the canoe round it. At the head of the portage they cut
several strong poles to use in places where they could not paddle.
They soon found that without the poles they could hardly have made any
progress at all; and even with them they moved very slowly. About noon
they landed, broiled and ate a small piece of venison, and after a
brief rest set out on their journey again.
By five o'clock they were all dead tired, wet, and chilled, and Mac and
Fred were ready to stop. Horace, however, urged them to push on. He
felt that perhaps the beaver trappers were not many miles behind.
After another day or two, he said, they could take things more easily,
but now they ought to hurry on at top speed.
Just before they were ready to land in order to make camp, three ducks
splashed from the water just in front of the canoe. Fred managed to
drop one of them with each barrel of the shot gun. Thus the boys got
their supper without having to draw on their supply of venison; but the
roasted ducks proved almost as tough as rawhide and, without salt,
extremely unpalatable. But they were all so hungry that they devoured
the birds almost completely; they put the heads into the willow cage,
but the foxes would not touch them.
For three hours more they pushed on up the river, tired, silent, but
determined. At last it began to grow dark. The boys had reached the
limit of their endurance, for they had had no sleep the night before.
They landed and built a fire. It was hard work to get enough wood
without the axe, but fortunately the night was not cold.
Exhausted as the boys were, they knew that one of them would have to
stand watch to see that the foxes did not gnaw their way out of the
cage, and that the trappers did not attack the camp. They drew lots
for it; Macgregor selected the short straw and Fred the long one, and
they arranged that Mac should take the watch for two hours, then
Horace, and lastly Fred.
The mosquitoes were bad, and there were no blankets, but Fred seemed to
go to sleep the moment he lay down on the earth. He did not hear
Horace and Mac change guard at midnight, and it seemed to him that he
had scarcely done more than close his eyes when some one shook him by
the arm.
"Wake up! It's your turn to watch!" Horace was saying.
Half dead with sleep, Fred staggered to his feet. Moonlight lay on the
forest and river.
"Take the rifle," said Horace. "There's not been a sign of anything
stirring, but keep a sharp eye on the foxes."
Horace lay down beside Mac and seemed to fall asleep at once. Fred
would have given black foxes and diamonds together to do likewise, but
he walked up and down until he felt less drowsy. The foxes were not
trying to get out, and he saw that they had gnawed the duck heads down
to the bills.
He sat down against a tree, close to the cage, with the loaded repeater
across his knees. For some time the mosquitoes, as well as the
responsibility of his position, kept him awake.
Every sound in the forest startled him; through the dash of the river
he imagined that he heard the sound of paddles. But by degrees he grew
indifferent to the mosquitoes, and his strained attention flagged.
Drowsiness crept upon him again; he was very tired. He found himself
nodding, and roused himself with a shock of horror. He thought that he
would go down to the river and dip his head into the water. He dozed
while he was thinking of it--dozed and awoke, and dozed again.
Then after what seemed a moment's interval he was awakened by a harsh
voice shouting:--
"Hands up! Wake up, and surrender!"