THE LETTER IN THE CAIRN
In Labrador September is the pleasantest month of the year. It is a
period of calm when fogs and mists and cold dreary rains, so frequent
during July and the early half of August, are past, and Nature holds
her breath before launching upon the world the bitter blasts and
blizzards and awful cold of a sub-arctic winter. There are days and
days together when the azure of the sky remains unmarred by clouds,
and the sun shines uninterruptedly. The air, brilliantly transparent,
carries a twang of frost. Evening is bathed in an effulgence of
colour. The sky flames in startling reds and yellows blending into
opals and turquoise, with the shadowy hills lying in a purple haze in
the west.
Then comes night and the aurora. Wavering fingers of light steal up
from the northern horizon. Higher and higher they climb until they
have reached and crossed the zenith. From the north they spread to the
east and to the west until the whole sky is aflame with shimmering
fire of marvellous changing colours varying from darkest purple to
dazzling white.
The dark green of the spruce and balsam forests is splotched with
golden yellow where the magic touch of the frost king has laid his
fingers and worked a miracle upon groves of tamaracks. The leaves of
the aspen and white birch have fallen, and the flowers have faded.
Spruce grouse chickens, full grown now, rise in coveys with much noise
of wing, and perch in trees looking down unafraid upon any who intrude
upon their forest home. Ptarmigans, still in their coat of mottled
brown and white, gather in flocks upon the naked hills to feed, where
upland cranberries cover the ground in red masses; or on the edge of
marshes where bake apple berries have changed from brilliant red to
delicate salmon pink and offer a sweet and wholesome feast.
The honk and quack of wild geese and ducks, southward bound in great
flocks, disturbs the silence of every inlet and cove and bight, where
the wild fowl pause for a time to rest and feed upon the grasses.
After Thomas's departure Doctor Joe and the boys tidied and snugged
things up for the winter, and many a fine hunt they had, mornings and
evenings, in the edge of a near-by marsh through which a brook coursed
to join the sea. Hunting geese and ducks was indeed a duty, for they
must needs depend upon the hunt for no small share of their living. It
was a duty they enjoyed, however. Skill and a steady hand and a quick
eye are necessary to success, and they never failed to return with a
full bag.
The weather was now cold enough to keep the birds sweet and fresh, and
before September closed a full two score of fine fat geese were
hanging in the enclosed lean-to shed with a promise of many good
dinners in the future.
Between the hunting and the work about home there was no time to be
dawdled vainly away. When there was nothing more pressing the
wood-pile always stood suggestively near the door inviting attention,
and it was necessary to saw and split a vast deal of wood to keep the
big box stove supplied, for it had a great maw and would develop a
marvellous appetite when the weather grew cold.
No extended travelling was possible for Doctor Joe on his errands of
mercy until the sea should freeze and dogs and sledge could be called
into service. But during the fine September weather he and the boys
made two short trips up the Bay, where there was ailing in some of the
families.
In the course of these excursions they took occasion to visit
Let-in-Cove, which lay just outside Grampus River, where the new
lumber camps were situated, and also Snug Cove and Tuggle Bight, a
little farther on. At Let-in-Cove Peter and Lige Sparks, at Snug Cove
Obadiah Button and Micah Dunk, and at Tuggle Bight Seth Muggs were
enlisted in the scout troop, and a handbook left at each place. These,
indeed, with the three Anguses, were the only boys of scout age within
a radius of fifty miles of The Jug.
There was great excitement among the lads, and Doctor Joe proudly
declared that there would be no finer or more efficient troop of
scouts in all the world than his little troop of eight when they had
become familiar with their duties.
A new field and a broader vision of life was to open to these Labrador
lads, whose life was of necessity circumscribed. They had never been
given the opportunity to play as boys play in more favoured lands.
They had never known the joys of football or cricket or the hundred
other fine, health-giving games that are a part of the life of every
English or Canadian boy. They had never seen a circus or a moving
picture and they had never been in a schoolroom in their lives.
This opportunity to play and study as other boys play and study in
other lands was the thing, perhaps, they longed for above all else.
Doctor Joe had inspired them with ambition. They hungered to learn and
here was the Handbook with many things in it to study, and through
Doctor Joe and the book they were to learn the joy of play.
The new recruits to the troop, however, as well as the Angus boys, had
been close students of their native wilderness. Their eyes were sharp
and their ears were quick. They knew every tree and flower and plant
that grew about them. They knew the birds and their calls and songs.
They knew every animal, its cry and its habits of life. They knew the
fish of the sea and lake and stream. All this was a part of their
training for their future profession of hunters and fishermen.
As hunters they had not learned to look upon the wild things of the
woods as friends and associates. To them the animals were only beasts
whose valuable pelts could be traded at the Post for necessaries of
life or whose flesh was good to eat. Success in life depended upon
man's ability to outwit and slay birds or animals, and the lads held
for them none of the human sympathy that would have added so much to
their own enjoyment.
Now they were to have a new view of life. Doctor Joe was to open to
them a wider, happier vista. It was not in the least to breed in them
discontent with their circumscribed life, but rather to open to their
consciousness the opportunities that lay within their reach, and to
make their life richer and broader and vastly more worth while.
Doctor Joe explained to the five recruits the Tenderfoot Scout
requirements, much as he had explained them to David and Andy and
Jamie. Wilderness dwellers who must take in and fix in the mind at a
glance every unusual tree or stump or stone if they would find their
trail, have a peculiar and remarkable gift of memory born of long
practice and the fact that they must perforce depend upon their
ability to retain the things they see and hear. The lads, therefore,
required no repetition, and learned their lessons with ease.
Though they had never attended school they could all read, stumbling,
to be sure, over the big words, but nevertheless grasping the meaning.
Doctor Joe, during his years in the Bay, had taught not only the Angus
boys but many of the other young people to read. Doctor Joe now marked
the pages that they were to study, and before he and the Angus boys
turned back across the Bay to The Jug it was agreed that the new troop
should hold a week's camp to study and practise together. Hollow Cove,
some five miles from The Jug, was to be the camping ground, and the
first week in October was decided upon as the time.
"We'll start to camp on Monday marnin' of that week," suggested David.
"Come over to The Jug on Sunday. 'Twill be fine to have us all go to
camp together."
"Aye," agreed Micah, "'twill be now, and we'll come, and have a fine
time."
"And we'll all study about the scout things whilst we're in camp,"
piped up Jamie enthusiastically.
"That we will now," David assured.
"Lige, you and Peter bring a tent and stove, and all you need for
setting up camp," Doctor Joe directed. "Can you bring one, too, Seth?"
"Aye," said Seth, "I'll bring un, but we have no tent stove. Pop took
un to the huntin'."
"Obadiah or Micah may bring a stove. You have one, haven't you?"
Doctor Joe asked.
"Aye," said Obadiah, "I has one. I'll bring un along."
"You three fix up an outfit amongst you. There'll be three in a tent,"
Doctor Joe explained. "Andy can go in with Peter and Lige, and I'll
tent with Davy and Jamie."
There was little else than the proposed camping expedition talked
about on the return to The Jug, and in the days that followed David,
Andy and Jamie devoted every spare moment to the study of first aid
and signalling. Doctor Joe, with no end of patience, drilled them so
thoroughly in first aid that they were soon really expert in applying
bandages. He even instructed them in improvising splints and reducing
fractures. In this secluded land, where for three hundred miles up and
down the coast there was no other surgeon than Doctor Joe, it was not
unlikely that some day they would be called upon to set a leg or an
arm.
Doctor Joe was as ignorant, however, of the art of signalling as were
the lads, and he must needs take it up from the very beginning and
study with them. It was decided that they should learn both the
semaphore and Morse codes, and Doctor Joe insisted that neither he nor
the lads should consider the Second Class test satisfactorily passed
until they had not only learned the codes but could send and receive
messages at the rate of speed designated in the handbook as required
for the First Class test.
"It wouldn't be fair to the scouts in the big cities," he declared.
"They have to learn a great many things that we already know how to
do, like building fires, using the axe and knife, and tracking. Those
are things we've been doing all our lives and won't have to practise.
We must make it just as hard for ourselves to become Second Class
Scouts as it is for the city lads. So we'll make the signalling test
that much more difficult."
"I'm thinkin' that's fine now," enthused David, "and when we learn un
we'll know that much more."
"That's the idea!" said Doctor Joe. "And we'll not only learn the
sixteen principal points of the compass, but we'll learn to box the
compass to the quarter point as navigators do."
"I can box un now," grinned David.
"So can I box un!" Andy exclaimed. "Dad told me how, same as he told
Davy."
"And I can learn to box un easy," promised Jamie.
Margaret joined them one fine day in the forest behind the cabin when
they took their Second Class cooking test, and a jolly day they made
of it. It was easy enough to roast a spruce grouse on the end of a
stick. Even Jamie had done that many times. But Doctor Joe was called
upon to solve the problem of cooking potatoes without cooking
utensils, and he did it so satisfactorily that the lads practised it
every day afterward for a week.
He resorted to a simple and ordinary method. He dug a narrow trench
about six inches deep. Upon this he built a fire, which he permitted
to burn until there was a good accumulation of ashes. Then he pushed
the fire back and raked the ashes out of the trench. The potatoes
were now placed in a row at the bottom of the trench and covered with
a good layer of hot ashes. The fire was now drawn back over the ashes
that covered the potatoes and permitted to burn briskly.
At the end of an hour he brushed the fire back at one end sufficiently
to allow a long slender splinter to be pushed down through the ashes
and through a potato. The splinter did not penetrate the potato easily
and the fire was drawn in again to burn for another quarter of an
hour. Then it was raked out and the potatoes removed, to find that,
while the skins were not in the least burned or even scorched, the
potatoes were done to a turn.
"You couldn't have baked them better in your oven, Margaret," laughed
Doctor Joe.
"I never could have baked un half as well," admitted Margaret, adding,
"'tis a wonderful way of cookin'."
"Doctor Joe's fine cookin' everything," declared Andy. "I always likes
his cookin' wonderful well."
"Thank you, Andy. That's high praise," acknowledged Doctor Joe, "but I
could learn a great deal about cooking from Margaret."
"I just does plain cookin'," Margaret deprecated, but flushed with
pleasure at the compliment.
On the last day of September, which was a Friday, David and Doctor Joe
crossed over to the Hudson's Bay Post and took Margaret with them for
a visit to Kate Huddy, the Post servant's daughter, where she was to
remain while the Scouts were enjoying their camp at Hollow Cove.
David and Doctor Joe returned to The Jug on Saturday, and when the
other members of the troop arrived in a boat on Sunday, had their own
tent equipment and food packed and ready for the little expedition on
Monday morning.
It was a jolly meeting. The evening was cold, and when supper was
eaten they gathered around the big box stove which crackled
cheerfully, and Doctor Joe announced that as this was the first
meeting of the troop they must organize and elect leaders, just as
troops were organized everywhere else in the world.
When he had thoroughly explained the necessary steps he read to them a
brief constitution and by-laws which he had previously prepared. These
he had them adopt in due form, and then asked some one to nominate a
patrol leader.
Every one, with one accord, nominated David, and he was duly,
solemnly, and unanimously elected.
"Now," suggested Doctor Joe, "we must have an assistant patrol leader.
Who shall it be?"
"Andy," said Seth Muggs. "Andy's been to the trails and he knows more
about un than anybody exceptin' Davy."
"'Twouldn't be fair," objected Andy. "Davy's patrol leader. 'Tis but
right we put in one of you that comes from across the Bay. I'm saying
Peter Sparks, now."
Doctor Joe agreed with Andy, and Peter Sparks was declared elected.
Then Seth nominated Andy for scribe.
"Because," Seth explained, "Andy'll be right handy to Doctor Joe all
the time and Doctor Joe can help he to do the writin', and he needs
help."
When the election was completed Doctor Joe explained the duties of the
officers and the necessity of obedience to them in the performance of
scout duties.
"Our troop is a team," said Doctor Joe.
"We must pull together. We are like a team of dogs hauling a komatik.
If the dogs all follow the leader and pull together the best that ever
they can they get somewhere. If they don't follow the leader, and one
pulls in one direction and another pulls in a different direction and
some don't pull at all, they never get anywhere and aren't of much
use. Our troop is going to be the best we can make it, by all pulling
together and doing the very best we know how.
"We must always be ready to help other people at all times, as we
promise to do in our oath. If we live up to that we'll do a great deal
of good, first and last, up and down the Bay. If some one's life is in
danger and we can help them even at the risk of our own we must help
them. Everybody wants to be happy. There's nothing that will make us
so happy as to do some fine thing every day that will make someone
else happy.
"We must train our brains and our hands so that we shall always be
prepared to do the right thing and do it quickly. We must learn to
keep our temper and not get angry. Let us take the hard knocks that
come to us with a smile."
The remainder of the evening was spent in playing some rollicking
games that the lads had never heard of before, and which Doctor Joe
taught them. There was the one-legged chicken fight, and one or two
others, as well as hand wrestling, though that they had seen the
Indians play and had practised themselves. They all declared that they
had never in their lives had so much fun.
An early start the following morning brought them to Hollow Cove at
ten o'clock. Hollow Cove was a fine natural harbour. A brook poured
down through a gulch to empty into the Bay, and near its mouth was an
excellent landing-place. Not far from the brook, and a hundred feet
back from the shore, they pitched their tents in the shelter of the
spruce forest where the camp would be well protected from winds and
storms.
While the others set up the sheet-iron stoves in the three tents and
broke spruce boughs and laid the bough beds, David, Micah, and Lige
volunteered to cut wood.
"There's some fine dry wood just to the east'ard and close to shore,"
suggested David, as they picked up their axes. "It's right handy."
A dozen yards from the camp David suddenly stopped and exclaimed:
"What's that now?"
On a great sloping rock close to the shore, but hidden by a jutting
point from the place where they had landed, was a recently made cairn
of boulders capped by a large flat stone.
"Somebody's been here!" said David as they hurried forward to examine
the cairn.
"'Tis wonderful strange to pile stones that way," said Micah. "'Tis
new made, too."
"Maybe it's a cache," suggested Lige, "but it's a rare small un. Look
and see. 'Tis a strange place for a cache!"
David lifted the flat stone from the top and discovered beneath it a
small tin can. In the can was a folded paper. He removed the paper and
unfolding it discovered a message written in a cramped, scrawling
hand.
"Read un, Davy! Read un out loud! You reads writin' good!" said Lige,
and David read:
"i cum and stayed 2 hour, and wood not stay no longer for i
hed to go and did not see you comin any were. Then i gos to
the rock were We Was the day We was hunting Wen We come here
ferst time. Then i done this way. i Pases 20 Pases up To a
Hackmatack Tree. it was north. then i Pases 40 Pases west
To a round rock, Then i Pases 60 Pases south To a wite berch
i use cumpus. Then i climes a spruce Tree and hangs it and
it is out of site in the Branches. if You plays me Crookid
look out, i wont Stand for no Crooked work and You know what
i will do to anybody plays me Crooked. You no Were to put my
haf of the Swag. So i can get it Wen i go to get it."
There was no signature.
"That's a strange un--wonderful strange," said David.
"Stranger'n anything I ever sees," declared Lige.
"Whatever is un all about?" asked Micah.
"That's the strangeness of un," said Lige.
"Let's show un to Doctor Joe," suggested David.
But Doctor Joe, when they broke in upon him a moment later, was as
mystified as they.
"It looks," said he, "as though something had been cached and here are
the directions for finding the cache. There's a threat in the letter,
too, and that looks bad. It's a mystery, lads, we'll try to search
out. It doesn't look right. Perhaps it's the clue to some crime."
"How can we search un out?" asked David excitedly. "We're not knowin'
the rock, and there's plenty of rocks hereabouts."
"That's true," admitted Doctor Joe. "Go and put the paper back as you
found it, and we'll see what we can make out of it later."
The whole camp was excited and every one followed David back to the
cairn when he returned to restore the letter to its place in the can.
"'Tis something somebody's tryin' to hide," suggested Peter.
"There's no doubtin' that," said David. "I'm thinkin' 'tis not right
whatever 'tis."
"We'll get camp in shape and have our dinner and then try to solve the
mystery," said Doctor Joe. "It is a real mystery, for no one would
make an ordinary cache in this way, and if it was an honest matter
there would be no threat."