“Hello! Come to supper, boys! Come to supper right away!”
Half eagerly, half shrinkingly, Dol emerged from the woods, feeling a
very torment of hunger quickened in him by the tantalizing sound of
that oft-repeated invitation.
A sight met him which, because of what went before and all that came
after, will be forever chief among the forest pictures which rise in
exciting panorama before his memory, when camping is a thing of the
past.
A broad dash of evening light, the sun’s afterglow, fell upon a patch
of clearing bordered by clumps of slim, outstanding pines, the scouts
of their massive brethren. That this was used as a camping-ground the
first glance revealed. A camp which looked to the tired eyes of the
lost boy a real “home-camp,” though it consisted of rude log cabins,
occupied it. A couple of birch-bark canoes reposed amid a network of
projecting roots. Withered stumps and tree-tops littered the ground.
In the foreground of the picture stood a man with a horn in his
uplifted hand, which he had just taken from his mouth. He was minus a
coat; and the rough-and-tumble disarray of his attire showed that he
had been lounging by his camp-fire, or perhaps overseeing the
preparation of supper. Dol had a vague impression that the individual
was not a forest-guide like Uncle Eb, nor a rough lumberman such as he
had heard of. He would have taken him for a pioneer farmer,—not having
yet encountered such a character,—but there could be no farm on this
little bit of clearing. And he was too dazed to see that there were
signs of a cultivated intelligence in the tanned, beaming face under
the horn-blower’s broad-brimmed hat. Indeed, the hat itself, its
wearer, log huts, canoes, and trees seemed to have a strange propensity
to waltz before the lad’s eyes, and there was a queer waving sensation
in his own legs, as if they, too, would join in the spinning movement.
For as he advanced into the light out of the sombre shadows, a
dizziness from long tramping in the woods, and from a hunger such as he
had never before experienced, overcame him. He reeled against an
outstanding tree, troubled by an affliction which Uncle Eb had called
“wheels in his head.”
“Ho! you boys. Where in thunder are you? Come to supper, or the venison
will be spoiled!” shouted the possessor of the horn again, shutting one
eye into which a crimson ray was pouring, while he swept the skirts of
the woods with the other; and there was music as well as bluster in his
shout.
Lo! the first to answer this fetching invitation was the foot-sore,
leg-weary boy, pale from exhaustion, with his strange equipment of
powder-horn, coon-skin pouch, and ancient shot-gun, who, getting partly
the better of his giddiness, crossed the clearing slowly, as if he was
groping his way. Within a few feet of the horn-blower he halted; for
the man had lowered his horn, and was gazing at him with keen,
questioning eyes. Dol tried to find suitable speech to express his
need; but though words came with considerable effort, his voice sounded
hoarse and creaky in his own ears, and threatened to crack off
altogether.
He was doing his best to brace up and speak plainly, when his sentence
was stopped by a noise of pounding footsteps. The next moment he saw
himself surrounded by three well-grown, daring-looking lads, one about
his own age, one older, one younger, who were gazing at him with
critical curiosity. All the pluck in Dol Farrar rose to meet this
emergency. He felt as if his legs were threatening to smash under him
like pipe-stems. There was a whirling and buzzing in his head. It
seemed as if his words had such a long way to travel from his brain to
his tongue that they got confused and changed before he uttered them.
But through it all he was conscious of one clear thought: that he was
an Old-World boy on parade before these strapping New-World lads. He
set his teeth, drove his gun hard against the ground, and, as it were,
anchored himself to it, while strange, doubting lights came into his
eyes as he tried to get a grip of his senses.
Illustration: Dol Sights A Friendly Camp.
He succeeded. At last he addressed the gentleman with the horn, knowing
that he was speaking to the point,—
“Good-evening, sir,” he said. “I—I—we’re camping out somewhere in the
woods. I—I got lost to-day. I’ve walked an awful distance. Perhaps you
could tell me”—
But the man stepped suddenly forward, with a blaze of welcome in his
eyes; for he saw the brave effort which the lad was making, and that
his strength was giving out. He put a kindly arm through Dol’s, as if
to warmly greet a fellow-camper, but really to support him.
“I’ll not tell you about anything until you’ve had a good, square
meal,” he said. “That’s our way in woodland quarters,—to eat first, and
talk afterwards. If you’re lost, you’ve struck a friend’s camp, and at
the right time too, son; so cheer up! After supper you can tell us your
yarn, and I guess we can set you right.”
Here at last was a surprise of unmixed blessedness for poor Dol;
namely, the brotherly hospitality which is always extended to a
stranger in a Maine camp, whether that be the temporary home of a
millionnaire or the shanty of a poor logger.
His new friend led him into the largest of the cabins, which contained
a fireplace built of huge stones, where red flames frisked around
fragrant birch logs, a camp-bed of evergreen boughs about ten feet
wide, a rude table, a bench, and a few stools of pine-wood.
Over the camp-fire was stooping a bright-eyed, muscular fellow, whose
dress somewhat resembled Uncle Eb’s, but who had no negro blood in his
veins. He was frying meat; and such tempting whiffs mingled with the
steam which floated up from his pan, that Dol’s nostrils twitched, and
his hungry longing grew almost unbearable as he inhaled them.
“I guess this chunk of ven’zon is about cooked, Doc,” said this
personage, as Dol’s kindly host entered the hut, with him in tow,
followed closely by the boys of his own camp.
“All right, then! Let’s have it!” was the reply. “I’m pretty glad our
camp-fare is decent to-night, Joe, for we’ve a visitor here; a hungry
bird who has strayed from his own camp, and has wandered through the
forest until he looks like a death’s head. But we’ll soon fix him up;
won’t we, Joe? Give him a mug of hot tea right away. Hot tea is worth a
dozen of any other drink in the woods for a pick-me-up.”
A spark of fun kindled in Dol’s eyes when he heard himself described as
“a hungry bird.” It brightened into an appreciative beam as the
reviving tea trickled down his throat.
“Eatin’s wot he wants, I guess,” said Joe, the camp guide and cook,
placing some meat and a slab of bread of his own baking on a tin plate
for the guest.
Dol began on them greedily; and though the first mouthful or two
threatened to sicken him, his squeamishness wore off, and he gained
strength with every morsel.
“How do you like Maine venison, my boy? Like it well enough to have
another piece, eh?” asked his host, when he saw that the haggard, gray
look was leaving the wanderer’s face, and that the appalled, dazed
expression, the result of being lost in the woods, had disappeared from
his eyes.
“I think it’s the best meat I ever tasted,” answered Dol heartily.
“It’s so tender, and has a splendid taste.”
“Ha! ha! It ought to be prime,” chuckled the owner of the camp. “It was
cut from the quarters of a buck which my nephew here, Royal Sinclair,”
pointing out the tallest of three lads, “shot four days ago. He was a
regular crackerjack—that buck! I mean, he was as fine a deer as ever I
saw; weighed over two hundred pounds, had seven prongs to his horns on
one side and six on the other. Royal is going to take the antlers home
with him to Philadelphia. We were mighty glad to get him, too; for we
have been camping here for five weeks, and were running short of
provisions. Roy had quite an attack of buck-fever over it, though he
didn’t think he was killing the ‘fatted calf’, to entertain a visitor;
did you, Roy?”
“I guess not, Uncle! But I’m pretty glad, all the same,” answered
Royal, with a smiling glance at Dol.
Young Farrar found himself in very pleasant quarters; and, now that he
was recovering, his laugh rang from one log wall to the other.
“What’s ‘buck-fever’?” he questioned, while Joe filled his plate with
more venison.
“A sort of disease of which you’ll learn the meaning before you leave
these woods,” answered his host merrily. “It attacks a man when he’s
out after a deer, and makes him feel as if one leg stands firm under
him, while the other shakes as if it had the palsy.
“Now I guess you’d like to know whose
camp you’re in, my boy, and then you can tell your story. Well, to
begin with the most useful member of the party. That knowing-looking
fellow over there, who cooked your supper, is Joe Flint, the best guide
that ever pulled a trigger or handled a frying-pan in this
region—barring one. These three rascals,” here the speaker beamed upon
the strapping lads, with whom Dol had been exchanging sympathetic
glances of curiosity, “are my nephews, Royal, Will, and Martin
Sinclair. And I—I—
“Good gracious! Listen to that, Joe! What’s up now? Another fellow lost
in the woods? Somebody is firing a round with his rifle! Perhaps he
wants help. Those are signal shots, anyhow!”
The camper whose horn had been Dol’s signal of deliverance, broke off
abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most
interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity. He rattled off
his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin,
followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully,
for his feet now felt like hot-water bags.
“That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,” said the leader,
counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the
forest from a powerful repeating-rifle. “Let’s give the fellow, whoever
he is, an answer, Joe!”
He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank
cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.
In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen,
the sound of a shrill, distant “Coo-hoo!” the woodsman’s hail, reached
them from the forest.
Joe instantly responded with a vehement “Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!” the
first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar
which showed the strength of the guide’s lungs,—a roar that might carry
for miles.
Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some
undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the
pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still
lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background,
gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from
his host.
“Why, Cyrus Garst!” exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer’s
face. “How goes it, man? I never expected to see you
here. Surely you haven’t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to
death!”
Cyrus—for it was he—grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this
camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting
the other’s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions
restlessly, like search-lights.
“I’m glad to see you, Doc,” he said. “I didn’t know you were anywhere
near. But I’m half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our
camp is missing. I’ve been scouring the forest for hours, and firing
signals, hoping he might hear them. But”—
Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing
inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The
Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In
the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst’s were stern, Dol’s
blinking and unsteady.
“Adolphus Farrar,” began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an
arrest, “have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while
your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What
unheard-of folly possessed you to go off by yourself?”
Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died
away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
“Say, Cyrus!” interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved
his champion, “let the youngster get breath and tell his story from
start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn’t much to
blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not
quite half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest
that he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his
grit too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he
was as exhausted a kid as ever I saw.”
The “kid,” forgiving this objectionable term because of the soothing
allusion to a trying time when he had behaved like a man, winked and
gulped to get rid of his emotion, and twisted his elbows out of Cyrus’s
hold. The latter lost his angry look, and released them.
“I must fire three shots to let Neal and Uncle Eb know I’ve found you,”
he said. “We parted company a while ago, and they’re beating about the
woods in another direction. Whoever first came upon any trace of you
was to fire his rifle three times.”
The signal was instantly given.
More far-reaching “Coo-hoos!” were exchanged. Ere long Neal was beside
his brother, looking at him with eyes which showed the same tendency to
leak that Dol’s had done a while ago, and battling with a desire to
squeeze the wanderer in a breathless hug. He relieved his feelings
instead by “blowing up” Dol with withering fire and a rough choke in
his voice.
But when, in response to an invitation from the genial camper whom
Cyrus and Joe called “Doc,” the whole party, guides included, had
gathered around the camp-fire in the big log hut, and Dol told his
story from start to finish, he became the hero of the evening.
His only fault had been a rash venturing into the unknown; and well it
was that he had not followed the unknown to his death.
“Why, boy!” exclaimed Cyrus, with a strong shudder, when Dol had
described the false trail which led him to the foot of the crag, “that
wasn’t a human trail at all. It was a deer-road. The deer spend their
day up in the mountains, and come down to the ponds at evening to feed
and drink. Now, a buck or doe in its regular journeys to and fro will
follow one line, to which it becomes accustomed. Perhaps fifty others,
seeing the ground trodden, will run in the same track. And there you
have your well-used path, which looks as if it was made by men’s feet!
“You may thank your lucky star, Dol, every hour of this night, that the
false trail didn’t lead you away—away—higher—higher—up the mountain,
until you dropped in your tracks, and died there alone, as others have
done before.”
A shocked hush fell upon the group around the camp-fire. Even the
guides were silent. But the fragrant birchen logs sputtered and glowed,
darting out playful tongues of flame. They seemed to call upon
everybody to dismiss gloomy thoughts of what might have been; to crack
jokes, sing songs, tell yarns, and be as merry as befitted men who had
a log hut for a shelter, fresh whiffs of forest air stealing to them
through an open doorway, and such a camp-fire.
Joe began to prepare supper for the three who had searched so long and
distractedly for Dol that they confessed to not having eaten for hours.
While more venison was being cooked, the juveniles, American and
English, who had been secretly taking stock of each other, cast aside
restraint, and became as “chummy” as if they had been acquainted for
years instead of hours.
Such a carnival of fun and noise was started through their combined
efforts in the old log camp, that its owner declared he “couldn’t hear
himself think.” Seizing his horn, he blew a blast which called for
order.
“Say, my boy, let me have a look at your feet,” he said, cornering Dol.
“A deer-road isn’t a king’s highway, as I dare say you’ve found out to
your cost. Pull off your moccasins and socks, and let me doctor your
poor trotters.”
Young Farrar very gladly did as he was bidden.
“Humph!” said his friend. “I thought so. They’re a mass of bruises and
blisters. You’ve been pretty well branded, son. Moccasins aren’t much
use to protect the feet from roots and sharp stones, if you happen to
strike a bad place in forest travelling, unless you have taken the
precaution to put double soles in them; didn’t you know that? Now,
Cyrus Garst,” turning to the student, “you’re all going to camp with us
to-night. This lad can’t tramp any more. As a doctor I forbid it.”
“Are you a doctor, sir?” questioned Dol, with a thrill of surprise,
which he managed to conceal.
“Something of the kind, boy,” answered his host, smiling. “I don’t look
much like a city physician, do I? I graduated from a medical college in
Philadelphia, and took my degree. But I had an enthusiasm for the
woods. One hour of forest life in dear old Maine was to me worth a year
spent amid streets, alleys, and sky-scraping buildings; so I fixed my
headquarters at Greenville, and have spent most of my time in the
wilderness.”
“Where every trapper, guide, and lumberman knows Dr. Phil Buck, whom
they disrespectfully and affectionately call ‘Doc,’” put in Cyrus. “And
many a poor fellow owes his life or limbs to Doc’s knowledge and
nursing in some hard time of sickness, or after one of the dreadful
accidents common in the forests.”
Dol could well understand this; for he now was benefiting by Dr. Phil’s
lively desire to relieve suffering, and was silently breathing
blessings on his head. The doctor had bathed his puffy feet in warm
water taken from Joe’s camp-kettle, and was anointing them with a
healing salve, after which he tucked them into a loose pair of slippers
of his own. Meanwhile, he chatted pleasantly.
“This isn’t the first time that your friend Cyrus and I have run
against each other in the wilds,” he said, “nor the first time that
we’ve camped together, either. Bless you! we could make you jump with
some of our stories. Do you remember that night in ’89, Cy, when you,
with your guide, came upon me lying under a rough shelter of bark and
spruce boughs, which I had rigged up for myself near Roaring Brook, on
the side of Mount Katahdin?”
“I guess I do remember it,” answered Cyrus, laughing.
“A mighty hungry man I was, too, that evening,” went on Doc; “for I had
no food left but one little package of soup-powder and a few beans. I
had been trying all day to get a successful shot at a moose or deer,
and muffed it every time. It wasn’t the lucky side of the moon for me.
Well, you behaved like the Good Samaritan to me, then, Cy; shared your
meat and all your stuff, and we slept like twin brothers under my
shelter.”
“Yes; and a bear visited our temporary camp in the night!” exclaimed
Cyrus, bursting into uproarious mirth over some over-poweringly funny
recollection; “he made off with my knapsack, which I had left lying by
the camp-fire. I suppose old Bruin thought he’d find something good in
it to eat; but he didn’t. So he tore my one extra shirt and every
article in the pack to shreds, and chewed up the handle of my razor, so
that I couldn’t shave again until I got back to civilization, when I
was as bristly as a porcupine.”
“Perhaps Bruin tried to shave himself,” suggested Dol.
“At all events, he had wisdom enough not to cut his throat,” answered
the story-teller. “We three—Doc, my guide, and myself—were stupidly
tired, and slept so soundly that we did not discover the theft nor who
the marauder was until the following morning. Then we found my knapsack
gone, and the tracks of a huge bear in some soft earth near our
shelter. We traced his footprints through a bog until we found the
spot, not far off, where, overcome by greed or curiosity, he ripped up
that strong leather knapsack as if it was _papier maché_ and made hay
of its contents.”
The boys had all crowded near to listen. It was now the social hour for
campers. By the camp-fire more reminiscences followed; and the two
guides chimed in it with moose stories, bear stories, panther stories,
wild tales of every imaginable and unimaginable kind of adventure,
until the lads thought no mythology which they had ever learned could
rival in marvels the forest lore.
At this opportune time, Neal suddenly thought of describing, or
attempting to describe, that strangest of strange calls which he had
heard, after the capsizing of the canoe, on the preceding night, when
Cyrus and he were jacking for deer on Squaw Pond.
Joe grunted expressively. “So help me! it was the moose call!” he
ejaculated. “What say, Doc?”
“I guess it was,” answered Dr. Phil. “It was either the cow-moose
herself calling, or some hunter imitating her with his birch-bark
trumpet. It’s a weird sort of experience, to hear that call for the
first time; I shouldn’t wonder if your heart went whack-whack, lad?”
“I only hope he’ll get a chance to hear it again before he goes back to
England,” said Cyrus.
Forthwith, the Harvard man proceeded to explain that he was bent on
pressing forward for a distance of sixty miles or so, to the heart of
the wilderness, to search for moose, but that he intended to do the
journey in a leisurely, zigzag fashion, camping for a couple of nights
at various points, in order to do the honors of the forest to his
English comrades.
“So you’re English, are you! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” exclaimed the doctor,
looking at the young Farrars. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to put our
best foot foremost to give you a good time in American woods.”
“I think that’s what we’re having, sir—such a jolly good time that
we’ll never forget it,” answered Neal courteously.
“Yes, it’s jolly enough now; but I tell you I didn’t find it so
to-day,” grumbled Dol, while his eyes gleamed like polished steel with
the light of present fun. “But as long as I live I’ll remember the
sound of your horn, Doctor, when I was dead-beat.”
“Is that so? Well, I guess I’ll have to make you a present of that
horn, boy, when we part company, and you go back to civilization, and
of the piece of birch-bark, too, which led you to our camp. ’Twas Joe
who fixed that to the pine near the swamp; for my lads had a habit of
following the trail to the alders, looking for moose or deer signs. He
scrawled his sentence on it with the end of a cartridge. I guess it
would be a sort of curiosity in England.”
Dol whooped his delight.
“I’ll put it under a glass shade! I’ll”—
While he was casting about in his mind for some way of immortalizing
that bit of white bark, Doc’s genial bluster was heard again,—
“Come! come! you fellows! No more skylarking in this camp to-night!
It’s high time for all campers to be snoring. Turn in! Turn in!”
But nobody was in a hurry to obey the summons to bed. While hands and
feet were being stretched out to the sizzling birch logs for a final
toast, Royal Sinclair, who had a trick of speaking very quickly, with a
slight click in his utterance, as if his tongue struck his teeth, began
to pour some communications into Neal’s ear in rapid dashes of talk,—
“This is just about the jolliest night we ever had in the forest, and
we’ve had a staving time all through. We live in Philadelphia, and
Uncle Phil—we call him ‘Doc’ like everybody else—brought us out here
for our summer vacation. This old log camp was built several years ago
by a hunting-party, of whom he was one. The walls were getting mouldy;
but he cleaned up the largest of the huts, with Joe’s help, and made it
our headquarters. He never needs a guide himself; not a bit of it! He
can find his way anywhere through the woods with his compass. But he is
a good deal away, so he engaged Joe to go out with us.
“He often starts off at a moment’s notice, and travels dozens of miles
on foot, or in a birch canoe, if he hears of a bad accident far away in
the forest. Sometimes a lumberman or trapper cuts his foot in two, or
nearly chops off his leg with his axe; and these poor fellows would
probably die while their comrades were lugging them through the woods
on a litter, trying to reach a settlement, if it weren’t for our Doc.
“Once in a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few
people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a
settler; but I call him a regular brick.”
“So do I,” said Neal with spirit.
“You’re awfully lucky to be able to camp out during October,” rattled
on Roy. “That’s the month for moose-hunting, jacking, and all the most
exciting sort of fun. We have
to go home in a day or two, for our school has reopened, unless”—
“When Royal Sinclair gets a streak of talking, you might as well try to
bottle up the Mississippi as to stop him,” said Dr. Phil, laughing. “I
can’t hear what he’s saying, but I know that his tongue is clicking
like a telegraph instrument. But I hope it has given its last message
for to-night. You really must turn in, boys. I let you have an extra
social hour, because to-morrow will be Sunday, a day of rest after the
travels and excitements of the week. Think of it, lads! A Sunday in the
woods—God’s first cathedral! May it do us all good!”
The guide, Joe, built up the fire. Fresh birch logs blistered and
sputtered as creeping curls of bluish flame enwrapped them. Kindling
rapidly, they threw out fantastic lights, which danced like a regiment
of red elves around the old log walls of the cabin.
“If a fellow could only drop off to sleep every night in the year
seeing and smelling such a fire as that!” breathed Neal, as, accepting
a share of Royal’s blankets, he stretched his tired limbs on the
evergreen mattress.
“Then life would be too jolly for anything,” answered Roy.
[Illustration]