I GO A-FISHING
All day long I tramped onward, following the course of the river, but
frequently entering the woods and trudging through the forest for
several miles to avoid impassable portions of the river-bank. Quite
frequently the shores rose in steep, rocky bluffs, between which the
torrent roared and foamed, while at other times fallen trees, driftwood,
and logs made progress along the shore impossible. Many a time that
first day of my journey did I have cause for thankfulness that had taken
the precaution to learn means for determining the points of the compass,
for the knowledge saved me many a weary mile.
Late in the afternoon I made camp at a little cove where the river cut
into the woods and where a crystal brook babbled through a fern-grown
ravine and gave promise of trout and frogs. My first work was to build a
tiny lean-to, and in doing this I saved myself a deal of labor by using
dead and fallen branches for the timbers of my shelter instead of
cutting them from living trees. I soon started a fire, and then walked
up the brook in a search of game. I had expected to find a few frogs or
perhaps to obtain some trout, but presently a flock of grouse whirred up
from the ferns and alighted on a low spruce a few yards away. It took me
but an instant to fit an arrow to my bow and to let it fly at one of the
birds. I made a clean miss and, rather chagrined, I tried again. Once
more I missed, but the stupid birds remained motionless and not at all
frightened by the passing arrows. As I watched them and wondered if it
would be possible to approach more closely I remembered the beaver
sinews and determined to attempt snaring the grouse. Rapidly forming a
noose with one of the fine tendons, I attached it to the butt of my
frog-spear and cautiously crept toward the unsuspecting birds. When
within reach I slowly pushed the pole forward, and although the grouse
craned their necks, moved about a little, and showed some nervousness,
they remained upon their perches, and an instant later the noose was
slipped over the head of the lowest and with a quick jerk I brought him
fluttering to the ground. Even then the other birds did not take flight,
and three fine grouse were mine ere the others realized their danger and
winged their way to safer quarters. I was greatly elated at my success
and dined royally on partridge, and had enough left over for my food for
the next day.
As I sat by my fire that evening I thought over my life since the day
when I was cast into the river, and, much to my surprise, I found it
difficult to fix the days and the sequence of events in my mind. Then
for the first time I realized that if I was to keep account of time I
must devise some means of recording the days.
My first idea was to cut notches in a stick, one for each day, but I at
once gave this up as impracticable, for I foresaw that the numerous
notches representing the days I had already passed in the woods would
prove confusing, and that this method would merely enable me to tell how
many days had passed and would fail to give me an idea of the day of the
week or the month. Moreover, to carry sticks for this purpose would be a
nuisance, and after some time I decided to make a rude calendar by means
of beaver tendons. My scheme was very simple and consisted of using two
tendons, one for the week-days and the other for the months. Each day I
would tie a knot in the week string and when the seventh day was reached
I would tie a large knot. Then when the days made up a month I would tie
a knot in the month string. To think was to act, and selecting a smooth,
long tendon I tied knots to represent the seven days I had already been
in the forest, with the last knot double the size of the others, and as
the canoe had been wrecked on Wednesday, the 2d of August, I tied nine
knots in my month string, which gave Wednesday as the day of the week
and the ninth day of the month as the correct date. I could easily
remember the month itself and I had not the least expectation of being
in the wilderness long enough to require a means of keeping track of
future months, but as it turned out, many a month string was tied into
knots ere I came to my journey’s end.
For several days I tramped onward without adventure or incident, save
that I fared ill for meat and was obliged to depend almost entirely upon
the mussels in the river and the fungus in the woods. Over and over
again I gave thanks to the rabbit which had first led me to this supply
of food, for without the fungus I would have gone to bed hungry on many
a night. Several times I saw hares and once or twice I flushed
partridges. I repeatedly tried to kill these creatures with my bow and
arrows, but I failed each time. Moreover, the grouse seemed wild and
suspicious and I could not approach closely enough to snare them, while
the brooks I passed, although alive with trout, had no deep pools or
isolated basins which I could bail out to secure the fish. Anxious as I
was to get out of the woods without delay, my longing for better food
finally overcame my impatience and I decided to make a halt for a day
and endeavor to trap or snare some sort of game.
Accordingly, I made camp at midday and spent the afternoon preparing
twitch-ups and deadfalls. It was while setting one of the latter that an
accident gave me an idea which proved of the utmost value and made my
lot far easier. Bending over and endeavoring to lift a log, my belt
parted, and to my chagrin I discovered that the stitches which held the
buckle had ripped out. Holding it in my hand and thinking of a way of
lashing it to the leather again, it suddenly occurred to me that in this
bit of metal I had the means of fashioning a fish-hook. The buckle was a
fairly large one, with a strong, sharp tongue, and one end of this was
already formed in an eye. All that was necessary was to detach the
tongue from the buckle-frame and bend it into a hooked form. Instantly
the deadfall was forgotten and I set to work hammering the buckle with
stones and bending it back and forth in order to remove the tongue.
The amount of labor which was required to accomplish this simple matter
is almost incredible. My fingers were bruised and torn, my hands were
cramped, and my arms ached ere the buckle-frame finally parted and the
tongue was free. Even more difficult was the task of bending this, for
my only tools were the water-worn pebbles. Time and again the bit of
metal slipped and I yelled with pain as my crude stone hammer struck my
fingertips. At last I hit upon the plan of heating it and placed the
tongue amid the hot coals of my fire. While it was heating I cudgeled my
brains to devise some method of holding the hot metal while bending it,
and at last hit upon what I considered a very clever scheme indeed. With
my knife I cut a notch in a piece of green wood and in the center of
this dug out, with great labor, a little depression at right angles to
the notch. The metal was now red-hot, and, carefully lifting it with a
green stick, I laid it in the notch with its center above the hollow.
Then a chip of stone, which I had already selected, was placed against
the steel and with a rock as a hammer I drove down upon the metal until
it bent into the recess below and took its shape. The steel bent so
readily when hot and the whole operation was so simple that I mentally
called myself a fool for spending so much time and mashing my fingers
trying to bend the metal when cold by means of stones. As soon as the
buckle-tongue was bent I threw water upon it to cool it and examined the
result of my ingenuity with the greatest pride. Undoubtedly it was a
hook, but doubts assailed me as to its value for catching fish, for it
was large, coarse, and clumsy and was scarcely better than an enormous
bent pin. However, I had seen trout caught with bent pins and the only
way to prove whether or not my trouble had been for naught was to test
the hook. It required but a short time to gather a quantity of fine
roots and tie these together in a line, but I found it a hard matter to
secure a root fine and strong enough to pass through the eye of my hook,
which had been squeezed out of shape while bending it. Again the useful
beaver tendons came into mind and with one of these I readily attached
the crude hook to my line. Equipped with this primitive tackle and with
worms, which I found beneath stones, for bait, I hurried to the
neighboring stream and dropped the baited hook into a shaded, deep pool
among the rocks. Hardly had the hook touched water before a silvery body
flashed, and by the sharp, hard tug on the line I knew I had hooked a
trout. Fearful lest my captive should slip from the barbless hook, and
tingling with excitement, I pulled in the line; but I was doomed to
disappointment. Scarcely had his flashing body reached the surface of
the water when, with a flap of his tail, the trout leaped into the air,
shook himself free, and dropped back into the pool while I stood gazing
stupidly at the empty hook dangling at the end of the line. I was filled
with bitter disappointment, for I had been confident that the fish was
firmly hooked, and for several moments I could not overcome my chagrin
at the loss of the fine trout. However, I had learned patience and
perseverance, and, again baiting the hook, I tried my luck once more.
Again came the sharp tug at the line as a fish took the bait, and this
time, instead of pulling slowly on the line, I gave a quick, hard jerk
and to my intense joy saw the flashing trout flung from the pool and
landed safely upon the mossy bank. Now that I had learned the trick, I
found little difficulty in securing several more trout, and while one
out of every two or three managed to escape, yet I had plenty of fish
for my meal by the time I had stopped. With a supply of trout thus
assured, I had no need to worry over my food in the future, but I was
terribly afraid of breaking my line and losing the precious hook, and to
avoid all chance of this I spent the remaining hours of daylight in
carefully braiding a better line from fine, selected hemlock roots.
My thoughts were so fully occupied with fishing that I almost forgot
about the traps and snares I had set, and I was on the point of again
setting out on my tramp when I remembered them. One deadfall had been
sprung and contained a tiny ground-squirrel, but a skunk or fisher-cat
had visited it before me and only a few bones and a little fur of the
chipmunk remained in the trap. My twitch-ups were far more successful
and in one I found a fine, fat hare and in another a red squirrel.
These I decided to use for my midday meal, and, well pleased with my
prowess as a trapper and fisherman, I continued on my way.
For some time I made good progress, but soon the country grew rough and
more mountainous, while the river flowed for long distances between
rocky, precipitous banks which compelled me to make my way through the
forest. Here it was also difficult traveling, for fallen trees were
scattered everywhere, the ground was rocky and full of holes and clefts,
and I was compelled to go far out of my way in order to avoid such
obstructions. So hard was the way that I longed again to be able to
follow the shores of the river and made frequent trips to the edge of
the bank, hoping each time to find the bluffs were passed and that I
could again travel in the open beside the stream. On one such occasion I
was standing at the verge of a high, steep bank with the river tumbling
and roaring in masses of foam among the jagged rocks far below. Suddenly
I felt the earth give way beneath me and with a cry of terror I clutched
frantically at the bushes about me. With a roar and rumble a great slice
of the bank fell crashing down to the river. The branch which I had
seized snapped, I felt myself slipping to certain death, and the next
instant found myself poised in midair above the precipice. Although the
branch had snapped off, it still supported me, and, sick with fear and
with pounding heart, I drew myself, hand over hand, up the edge of the
bank and fell panting on the earth.
Terribly shaken and helplessly weak from the shock, I lay trembling upon
the ground, for I had missed death, or terrible injuries, by a hair’s
breadth. I had been saved as by a miracle, and I breathed a prayer of
thanks that Providence had guided my hand to grasp a branch which was
strong enough to withstand the terrific strain of my falling body. Then,
having in a measure regained my breath and self-control, and curious to
see the sapling which had saved my life, I rose unsteadily to my feet
and cautiously approached the precipitous bank. Lying prone on my
stomach, I peered over the edge and a wave of faintness swept over me as
I gazed down a the tumbling rapids and jagged black rock at the foot of
the sheer decline. Close at hand was the slender growth which had proved
my salvation; bent, bruised, and drooping from my struggles, but still
intact. It was scarcely as large as my finger. Filled with amazement
that such a tiny bush could have supported me, I examined it with minute
care. The wood was cracked and broken in a dozen spots, the bark was
split and separated from the wood, but it was still as tough as a
leathern thong, flexible as whalebone, and fibrous as a rope. Carefully
cutting the branch, I withdrew to a point of safety to investigate its
marvelous strength. Twist it, bend it, or pull it as I would, I could
make no impression upon it, and it came at once to my mind that here,
indeed, was a natural rope of immense strength and which would be of
inestimable value to me. I also discovered that the strength was all in
the bark, and by stripping off slender pieces I found that with them I
could form cords, threads, and lines equal to hempen strands. Once again
an accident had led to a valuable discovery, and as the shrub was
abundant everywhere along the river’s bank I knew that I now possessed
an inexhaustible supply of lines and ropes which I could use for
numberless purposes. Not till long afterward did I learn that this was
“moosewood”; that its properties were known to every woodsman, hunter,
and trapper of the wilderness, and that to the Indians it served every
purpose of string and rope and was in constant use a thousand and one
ways. I was still so upset by my terrible experience that I abandoned
any idea of proceeding farther that day, and made camp a short distance
away beside a little mountain stream. Fascinated by the tough and
flexible character of the moosewood bark, I spent hours braiding and
twisting it into cords of various sizes, and it was so far superior to
the hemlock root that I made a new and better bowstring and a new
fish-line from the material.
Then having secured a good rest and having quite recovered from my
fright and shock I tried my hand at fishing. It took me but a short time
to catch a number of trout, as they were abundant in the brook and I had
now learned the knack of jerking them from the water so quickly that
they could not flap loose from the hook. The next morning I resumed my
tramp and for five days walk steadily onward without any incident worth
of record.
With every mile the river increased in width, sand-bars and rocky islets
rose in its midst, the current became less swift, and by the sixth day
the stream stretched in a broad, sluggish expanse of silver a quarter of
a mile wide.
Late in the forenoon of the seventh day I toiled up the slope of a low
ridge and amid the tree trunks on its summit I saw the bright sky
glimmering through the forest ahead. My heart leaped with joy at the
sight, for I knew that the wilderness must be nearly at an end, that
open country must be just beyond, and that my journey must be nearly
over. Tired as I was, I hurried onward, thrilled to think that my tramp
would soon be finished, that but a few hundred yards more and I would
break from the woods and look upon open fields, a clearing, or some
similar scene of the outposts of civilization, and that ere nightfall I
would be talking with my fellow-men. Forgetting my weary, blistered
feet, forgetting that my clothes were torn and ragged, forgetting the
hardships I had suffered, I pushed rapidly forward, my eyes fixed upon
the sunlit sky among the trees to the south, and all unmindful of the
fallen branches, the thick underbrush, and the brambles that beset my
path. Already the character of the woods had changed. Among the somber
evergreens deciduous trees grew thickly; open, brush-filled glades were
here and there; patches of blueberry-bushes grew in the hollows beneath
the trees, and on every hand were indications that I was approaching the
verge of the forest. A few moments more and between the tree trunks I
caught a glimpse of light, broken by breeze-swayed golden leaves, and
with a glad cry I broke into a run and dashed forward. I crashed through
the last small growth, burst forth into glorious sun-filled, open air,
and the next instant sank, exhausted and bitterly disappointed, to the
earth.