“Men and boys learn a good many wholesome lessons in the forest, one of
which is that it pays better to take a day of rest in seven if they
want to make the most of themselves and their opportunities. Therefore,
lads, we’ll do no tramping to-day. And we’ll have a bit of a service by
and by over there under the pines.”
So spoke Doctor Phil on the following morning, when the two sets of
campers, now one joyous, brotherly crowd, were sitting or lounging
about the pine-wood table, leisurely emptying tin mugs of tea or
coffee, and eating porridge and rolls of Joe’s baking.
“You haven’t told us yet, Cyrus,” he went on, “what point you’re bound
for. I know you’re level-headed, and plan every forest trip beforehand,
to economize time.”
“Yes, a fellow likes to do that; it adds to the pleasures of
anticipation,” Garst answered. “But it’s precious little use, after
all, when you’re visiting a region which is as full of surprises as an
egg is full of meat. However, I have arranged to meet Herb Heal, the
guide whom I generally employ, at a hunting-camp near Millinokett
Lake.”
“A good moose country,” put in Doc.
“I know it. At all events, it is a good place for a home-camp; one can
make excursions into the dense forests at the foot of Katahdin, which
are unrivalled for big game—so Herb says, and he’s an authority. These
English fellows may expect to have an attack of buck-fever, or
_moose-fever_ rather, which will set their blood on fire. Not that
we’re out chiefly for killing; we’re willing to let his mooseship keep
a whole skin, and go in peace to replenish the forests, unless he grows
cantankerous and charges us.”
“If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his mad up, he may do that;
it’s as likely as not,” chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.
“Well, it there’s a man in Maine who can be warranted to start a moose,
and to follow up his trail until he gets a sight of him, living or
dead, that man is Herb Heal,” said the doctor. “And his adventures go
ahead of those of any woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell you
how he swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose, holding with his
fingers and teeth to the creature’s long hair, then got astraddle of
its back, and severed its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How’s
that! It was the liveliest swim I ever heard of. But I mustn’t spoil
his yarns. He must tell them himself.
“A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!” went on the speaker, with
enthusiasm. “I ran across him first five years ago, when he was
trapping for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned
near the foot of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner with him then, a
half-breed Indian, whom woodsmen called ‘Cross-eyed Chris,’ a willing,
plucky, honest fellow when he was sober. But he loved fire-water. Let
him once taste spirits, or smell them, and he went clean crazy. He did
a dog’s trick to Herb,—stole all his furs and savings, with a splendid
pair of moose antlers, while he was away from camp one day, and skipped
out of the State. Herb swore he’d shoot him. But I don’t think he has
ever come across him since. And if he should, he wouldn’t stick to his
threat. He’s not built that way.”
There was a general hum of interest over this story, which even Cyrus
had not heard before.
“Now, how are you going to reach your camp on Millinokett Lake?” asked
Dr. Phil, when the buzz had subsided. “That’s the next question.”
“We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy stages, and get there
about the middle of October,” answered young Garst for himself and his
comrades. “Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and he’ll supply a
tent, so that we can rest for two or three nights at a time if we
choose.”
“Hum!” said the doctor doubtfully, laying his hand on Dol’s shoulder.
“This youngster oughtn’t to do much tramping for a few days, Cyrus.
That deer-road did up his feet pretty badly. I’ll be travelling in your
direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want to visit a
farm-settlement within a dozen miles of the lake, where the farmer has
a sickly child, the only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets if
Doc doesn’t come to see her once in a while.
“Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and press forward together.
I guess I’ll keep my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
responsibility of their missing that time at school. Now that they have
fallen in with your friends, it would be a shame to separate Young
England and Young America without giving them a chance to get
friendly.”
Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after one night in the
forest, sleeping in a light-hearted row on the evergreen boughs, with
their feet to the fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years of
city life might not have bred.
“I further propose,” he went on, “that we hire a roomy wagon and a pair
of strong horses from a settler who has a clearing about two miles from
here. There is an old logging-road which runs through the woods towards
the point for which we’re heading. We could follow that for the first
half of our journey. It isn’t a turnpike, you know. In fact, it’s only
a broad track where the underbrush has been cleared away, and the trees
cut down, with strips of corduroy road sandwiched in. But the lumbermen
still haul supplies over it to their camps, and I propose that we
follow their example. We can pile our tent, camp duffle [stores], and
all our packs into the wagon, together with the hero of the
deer-road,”—winking at Dol,—“and the rest of us can take turns in
riding. It will be a big lark for these youngsters to travel over a
corduroy road. A very bracing ride they’ll have in more senses than
one; but they can spin plenty of yarns about it when they get home.”
The “youngsters,” one and all, signified their approval of the
suggestion. Cyrus, who, as a college man, was above this category, was
pleased to acquiesce too.
“When can we get the wagon, Doctor?” asked Neal, burning to press
onward.
“Oh! the day after to-morrow, I guess. And now, lads!” Dr. Phil’s voice
was serious, but exultant, “we’re a thoroughly happy set of fellows, in
accord with each other and our surroundings. We feel our brains clear,
our gladness springing up, and our lungs swelling to double their size
with the whiffs which reach us from those sky-piercing pines yonder. So
we will remember that ‘the wide earth is our Father’s temple.’ Over
there in the woods we will worship him, while millions of forest
creatures about us, flying, bounding, or building, in obedience to his
laws, simply worship too.”
A music soft, deep, sighing, like the murmur of an organ under the
fingers of a master musician, rolled through the pine-tops as the band
of campers, guides included, followed Doc into the forest. They passed
the clumps of slender trees near the camp, and reached a dimly-lit
green aisle.
Towering pines, so tall and erect that they seemed shooting upward to
kiss the clouds, were the pillars of their cathedral. Its roof of
tasselled boughs was stabbed by flashing needles of sunlight, which let
in a flickering, mellow radiance, and traced a pattern on the woodland
carpet. Every whiff of forest air was natural incense.
Dr. Phil stood as if in the audience-chamber of the King, and removed
his wide-brimmed hat.
“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be
honor and glory, for ever and ever. Amen!” he said.
Then Cyrus’s voice led the worship.
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!”
he sang, in a strong, glad outburst.
Boys and guides, in a great chorus, swelled the familiar words. Each
sweetly chirping woodland bird, after its own manner, echoed them. The
music among the pine-tops mingled with them. The forest fairly rang
with a magnificent, adoring Doxology.
“We ought to be decent kind of fellows after this,” said Cyrus, when
the little service was over.
And the doctor answered,—
“I tell you, boy, the church was never built where a man feels so ready
to worship the God-Father in spirit and in truth as he does in the wild
woods.”
And looking on the six fresh, manly faces before him, Dr. Phil saw that
this happy woodland trip would have grander results than adding to the
campers’ inches and to the breadth of their shoulders. For each one of
them had realized this morning that behind all strength and beauties of
forest growth, behind their own souls’ gladness, was a Presence which
they could “almost palpably feel.”
[Illustration]