Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of
Indians, “Company Three,” as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the
crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of
Millinokett Lake.
During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully
did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and
pointless. Royal’s tear-away tongue, his brothers’ racket, Joe’s racy
talk, Uncle Eb’s kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc’s
companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled
with him, were missed.
But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to
eat their “snack” on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook
purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin’s rugged sides
and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of
what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm
replaced depression.
“It’s no use grizzling because we can’t have those fellows with us all
the time,” remarked Neal philosophically. “’Twas a big piece of luck
our running against them at all. And I’ve a sort of feeling that this
won’t be the end of it; we’ll come across them again some day or
other.”
“And at all events we’ll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as
we go back,” said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.
“Well, needless to say, I’d have been glad of their company for the
rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with
us, it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose.
We’re a big party already for moose-calling or stalking—three of us,
with Herb;” this from Cyrus.
“Now, fellows, don’t you think we’d better get a move on us?” added the
leader. “We’ve half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right
here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let’s keep a stiff
upper lip, and the journey will soon be over.”
It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the
brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men
could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly
fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity,
then of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet
merry-go-round. Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now
that they were nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were
full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with
each mile which drew them nearer to him.
They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left,
while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour’s tramping brought
them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.
Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced
to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back
the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently
countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.
The irregular shores of the lake were broken by “logons,” narrow little
bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered
by evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the
opposite bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and
valley to the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the
northward.
“Millinokett Lake,” said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft,
liquid sound. “It’s an Indian name, boys; it signifies ‘Lake of
Islands.’ Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their
names is unequalled. I don’t know exactly how many of those islets
there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them
anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?”
After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers
reached a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this
clearing were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a
distance of a few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of
splendid firs and spruces, the lively green of the latter making the
former look black in contrast.
“Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!” boomed Neal and Dol
together.
“It’s our camp, sure enough,” answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm.
“At least the first cabin will be ours. I don’t know whether there are
any hunters in the other one just now.”
The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to
accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds
in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one
during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal
had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide
to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from
neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he
expected to slide into the lap of luxury.
In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with
anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it
securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force
an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts,
and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was
in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive
comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a
sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a
head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as
well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the
great stone fireplace only two feet distant.
The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a
hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big
yarns, while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted
against his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was
empty. There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in
bunk. There was no Herb Heal.
“Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?” Garst exclaimed. “He’s been
here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he’s
only prowling about in the woods near. I’ll give him a ‘Coo-hoo!’”
Illustration: “Herb Heal.”
He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent
his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle
and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.
Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.
The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered
remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.
“Well, fellows!” said the leader, with manifest chagrin, “we’ll only
have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait
patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke
an engagement yet. He’s as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or
spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here
from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I’m
mighty hungry. Who’ll go and fetch some water from the lake while I
turn cook?”
Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin.
He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by
side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up
his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small
stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and
showed himself to be a genius with the pan.
The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy;
but camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such
trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts
of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have “done credit
to many a Boston woman’s afternoon tea-table”—so young Garst said.
Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And
when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a
mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove’s plumage, when the
islets on Millinokett’s bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet,
and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even
Cyrus became fidgety and anxious.
“I hope the fellow hasn’t come to grief somewhere in the woods,” he
said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. “But Herb has
had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be
born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way
anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone,
every turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him
through the trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning
for him. He reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost
anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we’d better build up our fire, make things
snug for the night, and turn in.”
Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty
minutes’ time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with
their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.
“Hello! So you’ve got here at last, have you?”
The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers
like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up,
feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which
they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.
The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from
the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young
Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the
woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely
brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.
This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in
mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter
hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat
was pushed back from his forehead, a guide’s leathern wallet was slung
round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so
tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold
together, had a rent on one shoulder.
His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of
Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk,
with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing
the face of the lake.
The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like
bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to
kindle his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence.
Seeing a glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin
was tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid
flare which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his
presence.
“Herb Heal, man, is it you?” shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight
joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman’s
arm. “I’m delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you
wouldn’t disappoint us! I didn’t fasten the cabin-door, for I thought
you might possibly get back to camp during the night.”
“Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?” was Herb’s greeting. “I had a’most
given up looking for you. But I’m powerful glad you’ve got here at
last.”
The hunter’s voice had still the quick snap and force which made it
startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.
“These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar,” said Cyrus,
introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet.
“Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy—isn’t
that so, Herb?”
“I reckon it is;” answered the young hunter, laughing. “But no woodsman
could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I’ve been
Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle.”
He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat
with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young
pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his
juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.
“Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?” he asked. “Well,
I guess you’ve come to the right place for sport. I’m sorry I wasn’t on
hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must
have thought me. But I guess I’ll show you a sight to-morrow that’ll
wipe out all scores.”
There was such triumph in the hunter’s eye that the voices of the trio
blended into one as they breathlessly asked,—
“What sight is it?”
“A dead king o’ the woods, boys,” answered Herb Heal, his voice
vibrating. “A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of
liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about
four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I
had no fresh meat left, and I didn’t want to have a bare larder when
you fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn’t
seem to be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a
sudden I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right
onto me. I was to leeward of him, so he couldn’t get my scent. A man’s
gun doesn’t take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped
him with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn’t get
him back to camp till morning. He’s not full-grown; but he’s a fine
fellow for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I’d
give the biggest guide’s fees I ever got if you fellows had been there
to hear him striking the trees with ’em as he tore along. He was a
buster.
“But you’ll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat
for the first time in your lives, I guess.”
Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it
scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.
The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for
a painter,—the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes
of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the
three staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to
miss one point of his story.
Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed
seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at
the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in
death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose,
with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters.
Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or
by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and
super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man
and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a
wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.
“I’m sorry to keep you awake, boys,” said Herb Heal, making for the
fire, after he had finished his story; “but I haven’t had a bite since
morning, and I’m that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I’ll get
something to eat, and then we’ll turn in. We’ll have mighty hard work
to-morrow, getting the moose to camp.”
Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of
flapjacks and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of
a precious bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles
distant, and set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long
stick of white spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck
into the ground; the other was split, and into it the candle was
inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.
The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an
hour he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he
stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin
blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some
prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the
fir-boughs,—the camper’s couch which levels all. There flashed upon the
fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that
“in the woods manhood is the only passport.” He thought that, measured
by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a
president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and
unconquerable as the forest wind.
[Illustration]