About noon on the following day they were obliged to bid farewell to
Lin Hathaway, his wagon and horses, as the logging-road went no
farther. The young settler turned homeward rather regretfully. It might
be many months again before he got a chance of talking to anybody
beyond his father and mother, and the boys had brought a dash of
outside life into his woodland solitude.
The travellers proceeded on foot through a dense forest, which, luckily
for Dol, had little undergrowth and mostly a soft carpet of moss or dry
pine needles. Still they had plenty of climbing over windfalls, with
many rough pokes and jibes from forward boughs and rotten limbs, to rob
the way of sameness. Through this labyrinth they were safely piloted by
Uncle Eb and Joe, the latter with his compass in his hand, and the
former simply studying the “Indian’s compass,” which is observing how
the moss grows upon the tree-trunks, there being always a greater
quantity on the side which faces north.
Before nightfall they reached another log cabin, tenanted by a man who
had just settled down for the purpose of clearing up a farm. Here they
were lodged for the night, without trouble of making camp.
The third day of their journey was marked by two sensations. They
halted for a short rest at a point where there was an extensive break
in the forest. Scarcely had they emerged from the gloom of a dense
growth of cedars, when Dol exclaimed.—
“Good gracious! That looks as if people had been building a jolly high
railroad out here.”
On the right rose a bare, steep ridge of sand and gravel, nearly ninety
feet in height, and closely resembling a railway embankment.
“Well, boy,” laughed Dr. Phil, “if that’s a railroad, Nature built it,
and by a mighty curious process too. The sand, rocks, and
gravel of which it is mostly formed must have been swept here by a
great rush of waters that once prevailed over this land. We call the
ridge a ‘Horseback.’ If you like, we’ll climb to the top of it, after
we’ve had our snack [lunch], and you can get a peep at the surrounding
country.”
So they did. The top was level, and wide enough for two carriages to
drive abreast; and the view from it was one which could never be
forgotten. Around them were millions of acres of forest land, beautiful
with the contrasts of October; here dipping into a cedar valley, in the
midst of which they saw the silver smile of a woodland lake, there
rising into a hill crowned with towering pines, some of them over a
hundred feet in height.
But, most thrilling sight of all, they beheld, only half a dozen miles
away, rising in sublime grandeur against the sky, the mountain of
mountains in Maine,—great Katahdin. They had caught glimpses of its
curved line of peaks before. Now they saw its forests, and the rugged
slides where avalanches of bowlders and earth from the top had ploughed
heavily downward, sweeping away all growth.
Cyrus lifted his hat, and waved it at the distant mass.
“Hurrah!” he cried. “There’s the home of storms! There’s old Katahdin!
The Indians named it Ktaadn ‘the biggest mountain.’”
“Want to hear the Indian legend about it, lads?” asked Dr. Phil.
A general chirp of assent was his reply, and the doctor began:—
“Well, when the redskins owned these forests, they believed that the
summit of Katahdin was the home of their evil spirit, or, as they call
him, ‘The Big Devil.’ He was named Pamolah. And he was a mighty
unpleasant sort of neighbor. Once, so tradition says, he ran away with
a beautiful Indian maiden, and carried her up to his lonely lair among
those peaks. When her tribe tried to rescue her, he let loose great
storms upon them, his artillery being thunder, lightning, hail, and
rain, before which they were forced to flee helter-skelter. An old red
chief long ago told me the story, and added gravely that ‘it was sartin
true, for han’some squaw always catch ’em debil.’
“The foundation of the legend lies in the fact that there really is a
very curious granite basin among Katahdin’s peaks, and it is the
birthplace of most storms which sweep over our State. I myself have
seen clouds forming in it, when I made an ascent of the mountain in my
younger days, and whirling out in all directions. The roar of its winds
may sometimes be heard miles away. There are several ponds in the
basin; one of them, a tiny, clear lake, without any visible outlet, is
Pamolah’s fishing-ground. That’s the yarn about the mountain as I heard
it.”
Illustration: In The Shadow Of The Katahdin.
“Ain’t it a’most time for us to be gittin’ down from this Horseback,
Doc?” asked Joe, who had been listening with the others. “I thought
we’d reach the farm you’re heading for to-night, but we’re half a dozen
miles off it yet; and we can’t do more’n another mile or two afore
it’ll be time to halt and make camp. There’s some pretty bad travelling
and a plaguy bit of swamp ahead.”
“I guess you’re about right, Joe,” said Doc, rising with alacrity from
the stone where he had seated himself while telling his yarn.
Joe’s bad travelling meant a great deal of tripping and floundering
through soft mud and mire, with slippery moss-stones sandwiched in, and
dwarfed bushes which ran along the ground, and twisted themselves in an
almost impassable tangle. These had a knack of catching a fellow’s
feet, and causing him to sprawl forward on his face and hands,
whereupon his knapsack would hit him an astounding thwack on the back.
After three-quarters of an hour of this fun, very muddy, clammy with
perspiration, and thoroughly winded, the party reached firmer ground,
and the guides called a halt.
“Guess we’d better rest a bit,” said Joe, “afore we go farther. There’s
nothing in forest travelling that’ll take the breath out of a man like
crossing a swamp,” eying compassionately the city folk; for he himself
was as “fit” as when he started. “Then we’d better follow that stream
till we strike a good place for a camping-ground. What say, Doc?”
Dr. Phil, as captain, signified his assent. After a short
breathing-spell he again gave the command, “Forward!” And his company
pushed on into the woods, following the course of a dark stream which
had gurgled through the swamp.
“There used to be an old beaver-dam somewheres about here,” broke forth
Joe presently, when they had made about a quarter of a mile, the
younger guide taking the lead, for he was evidently more at home in
this part of the forest land than his senior, Uncle Eb. “Hullo, now!
there it is. Look, gentlemen!”
He pointed to a curved bank of brushwood, mostly alder branches, piled
together in curious topsyturvy fashion, which formed a dam across the
stream. It bristled with sticks, poking out and up in every direction;
for the bushy ends of the boughs had been heavily plastered with mud
and stones, to keep them down.
“That a beaver-dam!” gasped Neal in amazement. “Why, I always had an
idea that beavers were half human in intelligence, and wove their
branches in and out in a sort of neat basketwork when making dams.
That’s a funny rough-and-tumble looking old pile.”
“It’s a good water-tight dam, for all that,” answered Cyrus. “And don’t
you begin to underrate Mr. Beaver’s intelligence until you see more of
his works. I’ve torn the bottom out of a dam like this on a cold, rainy
night,—beavers like rainy nights for work,—and then hidden myself in
some bushes to watch the result. It was a trial of strength and
patience, I assure you, to remain there for six mortal hours,—though I
had rubber overalls on,—with wet twigs and leaves slapping my face. But
the sight I saw was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined.
There was a cloudy, watery moon; and shortly after it rose, five
beavers appeared upon the dam, scrambling up and down, and examining
the great hole through which the water was fast leaking out of their
pond. Then, following a big fellow, who was evidently the boss beaver,
they swam to the bank. He stationed himself near a tree about twenty
inches in circumference, and his four boys at once started to fell it.
I tell you they worked like hustlers, each one sawing on it in turn
with his sharp teeth, and sometimes two of them together on different
parts of the trunk.
“At last the tree—it was an ash—fell, toppling into the water just
where the beavers wanted it. They pushed and tugged it down-stream for
about ten yards, to the dam, and propped it against the opening which I
had made. I couldn’t see the rest of the operations clearly; but I
caught glimpses of them, marching about on their hind-legs, carrying
mud snug up to their chins like this,” here Cyrus folded his arms
across his chest. “And before daybreak that dam was perfectly repaired,
with never a leak in it.
“You know they build the dams in very shallow water, only a few inches
deep; and they generally roll in a couple of long logs for a solid
foundation. It was one of these which I had torn out. Now, Neal, what
do you say about the beaver’s intelligence?”
“If I didn’t know you, Cyrus, I’d say you were making up as you went
along,” answered Neal. “It seems one of those things which a fellow can
scarcely believe in. Hulloa! What’s that?”
A loud report, like the bang of a gun, made all the boys, who had been
standing very quietly, gazing at the dam, suddenly jump.
“It’s only a beaver striking the water with his tail,” laughed Cyrus.
“He has been swimming about somewhere up-stream, and has scented us,
and dived. I have heard one do that a dozen times in the night, if he
detected the presence of man; but it’s very unusual in the daytime, for
they rarely venture out in broad light. In diving, if suddenly alarmed,
they strike the surface of the water a tremendous whack with their
tails, as a signal of alarm, making this report, which in still weather
resounds for a great distance.
“I’m very glad you heard it, boys; for your chances of seeing the
master beaver or any of his colony are mighty slim. But we’ll probably
come on their lodge a little higher up.”
Above the shallow water where the dam was built, the stream widened
into a broad, deep pool. About fifty yards ahead, in the centre of
this, was a tiny island. On its extreme edge Joe pointed out the beaver
lodge. It was shaped something like a huge beehive, being about a dozen
feet in diameter and five feet high. The outside seemed to be entirely
covered with mud and fibrous roots, through which the sticks which
formed its framework poked out here and there.
“The doors are all underwater,” said Cyrus, “and so far down that
they’ll be beneath the ice when the stream freezes in winter. Otherwise
the beavers could not reach their pile of food-wood, which they keep at
the bottom, and would starve to death. They are clerks of the weather,
if you like. They seem to know when the first hard frost is coming, and
sink their stores a day or two before. Man has not yet discovered their
mysterious knack of sinking wood, and keeping it stationary through
many months.
“They feed on the inner bark of poplar, white birch, and willow trees.
In autumn they fell these along the banks, generally so that they will
fall into the water, tug and push them down-stream, and float them near
to their lodges. If the trees are too big to be easily handled, they
saw them into convenient lengths.”
“I call it tough luck, not being able to get a sight of the animals,
after seeing so much of their works,” grumbled Royal.
“Ye might wait here till midnight, and not have any better,” said Joe.
“That fellow’s tail was like a fire-alarm to them. They ain’t to home
now, you bet! They’ve dusted out of their house as if it was on fire;
and they’ve either dived to the bottom, or hidden themselves in holes
along the bank. Guess we’d better be moving on. It’s a’most time to
think about making camp.”
“The beavers have been working here!” exclaimed the guide a few minutes
later, as he strode ahead. “These white birches were felled by ’em; and
a dandy job they did too.”
He pointed to two slim birches which lay prone with their tops in the
water, and to a third, the trunk of which was partly sawn through in
more than one place. The ground was strewn with little clippings of
timber, bearing the saw-marks of the beavers’ teeth. The boys gathered
them up as curiosities.
“Oh, the skilful little animals can beat this work by long odds!”
exclaimed Doc. “These trunks only measure from eight to twelve inches
in circumference. I’ve seen a tree fully two feet round which was
felled by them. Say, Joe! don’t you think we’d better camp to-night
somewhere on the _brûlée?_”
“Just what I’m planning, Doc,” answered Joe. “We must be pretty near it
now.”
A few minutes afterwards the party filed out of the dense woods, passed
through a grove of young spruces, forded a brook which emptied itself
into the stream they were following, and came upon a scene blasted,
barren, and unutterably dreary.
The band of boys, who, in spite of swamps and jungles, had learned to
love the forest dearly, for its many beauties, and for the wild
offspring with which it teemed, sorrowfully gasped, as if they saw the
skeleton of a friend.
[Illustration]