THE SNOWSHOE JOURNEY TO INDIAN LAKE
There was yet no hint of dawn. Moon and stars shone cold and white out
of a cold, steel-blue sky. The moisture of the frozen atmosphere,
shimmering particles of frost, hung suspended in space. The snow
crunched and creaked under their swiftly moving snowshoes.
They traveled in single file, after the fashion of the woods. Amesbury
led, then followed Ahmik, after him Paul, with Dan bringing up the
rear. Each hauled a toboggan, and though Paul’s and Dan’s were much
less heavily laden than Amesbury’s and Ahmik’s, the lads had
difficulty in keeping pace with the long, swinging half-trot of the
trapper and Indian.
Presently they entered the spruce forest of a river valley, dead and
cold, haunted by weird shadows, flitting ghostlike hither and thither
across ghastly white patches of moonlit snow. Now and again a sharp
report, like a pistol shot, startled them. It was the action of frost
upon the trees, a sure indication of extremely low temperature.
Dawn at length began to break--slowly--slowly--dispersing the
grotesque and ghostlike shadows. As dawn melted into day, the real
took the place of the unreal, and the frigid white wilderness that had
engulfed them presented its true face to the adventurous travelers.
Scarce a word was spoken as they trudged on. Amesbury and Ahmik kept
the silence born of long life in the wilderness where men exist by
pitting human skill against animal instinct, and learn from the wild
creatures they stalk the lesson of necessary silence and acute
listening. Dan, too, in his hunting experiences with his father, had
learned to some degree the same lesson, and Paul had small inclination
to talk, for he needed all his breath to hold the rapid pace.
Rime had settled upon their clothing, and dawn revealed them white as
the snow over which they passed. The moisture from their eyes froze
upon their eyelashes, and now and again it was found necessary to pick
it off, painfully, as they walked.
The sun was two hours high when Amesbury and Ahmik suddenly halted,
and when Paul and Dan, who had fallen considerably in the rear,
overtook them, Ahmik was cutting wood, while Amesbury, lighting a
fire, was singing:
“‘Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
Polly put the kettle on,
And let’s drink tea.’”
“How are you standing it, fellows?” he asked, looking up.
“Not bad, sir,” answered Dan.
“I’m about tuckered out, and as empty as a drum!” exclaimed Paul.
“Pretty hard pull for raw recruits,” said Amesbury, laughing. “But
wait till tomorrow! Cheer up! The worst is yet to come.”
“I hope it won’t be any harder than this,” and Paul sat wearily down
upon his toboggan.
“No,” encouraged Amesbury, “better snowshoeing, if anything. But
there’s the wear and tear. You’ll have a hint of it tonight, and know
all about it tomorrow.”
“I finds th’ snowshoein’ not so bad today,” said Dan, “but I’m
thinkin’ now I knows what you means. I had un bad last year when I
goes out wi’ Dad. ’T were wonderful bad, too. I were findin’ it
wonderful hard t’ walk with th’ stiffness all over me when I first
starts in th’ mornin’, but th’ stiffness wears off after a bit, an’
I’m not mindin’ un after.”
“That’s it. You’re on,” laughed Amesbury, as he chipped some ice from
a frozen brook to fill the kettle for tea.
“Very hard, you find him,” broke in Ahmik, joining in Amesbury’s
laugh. “You get use to him quick. Walk easy like Mr. Amesbury and me
soon. No hard when use to him.”
Ahmik was growing more talkative upon acquaintance, and drawing out of
the natural reticence of his race with strangers, as is the way of
Indians when they learn to know and like one.
It was a hard afternoon for Paul, and he had to summon all his grit
and fortitude to keep going without complaint until the night halt was
finally made, but he did his share of the camp work, nevertheless,
with a will, and when the tent was pitched and wood cut he sat down
more weary than he had ever been in his life.
Amesbury and Ahmik traveled in true Indian fashion when Indians make
flying trips without their families. They had neither tent nor tent
stove to protect them. The experienced woodsman can protect himself,
even in sub-Arctic regions, from the severest storm and cold, so long
as he has an axe. Sometimes he resorts to temporary shelters, with
fires, sometimes to burrows in snowdrifts, or to such other methods as
the particular conditions which he has to face suggest or demand.
Paul and Dan, however, had their tent, tent stove and other
paraphernalia. The tent they pitched upon the snow, stretching it, by
means of the ridge rope, between two convenient trees. When it was
finally in place Dan banked snow well up upon all sides save the
opening used for an entrance.
While Dan was thus engaged Paul broke spruce boughs for a floor
covering and bed, Ahmik cut wood for the stove, and Amesbury unpacked
the outfit and set the stove in place upon two green log butts three
feet long and six inches thick. This he did that the stove might not
sink into the snow when a fire was lighted and the snow under the
stove began to melt.
The telescope pipe in place, Amesbury put a handful of birch bark in
the stove, broke some small, dry twigs upon it, lighted the bark, as
it blazed filled the stove with some of Ahmik’s neatly split wood, and
in five minutes the interior of the tent was comfortably warm.
Paul spread the tarpaulin upon the boughs which he had arranged,
stowed their camp things neatly around the edge of the interior, and
night camp was ready. Though rather crowded, the tent offered
sufficient accommodation for the four.
A candle was lighted, and Amesbury installed himself as cook. A
kettle of ice was placed upon the stove to melt and boil for tea. A
frying pan filled with thick slices of salt pork was presently
sizzling on the stove. Then he added some salt and baking powder to a
pan of flour, mixed them thoroughly, and poured enough water from the
kettle of melting ice to make a dough.
The pork, which had now cooked sufficiently, was taken from the pan
and placed upon a tin dish, and the dough, stretched into thin cakes
large enough to fill the circumference of the pan, was fried, one at a
time, in the bubbling pork grease that remained. In the meantime tea
had been made.
“All ready. Fall to,” announced Amesbury.
“I feels I’m ready for un,” said Dan.
“I can eat two meals,” declared Paul.
“I’m interested to see what the day’s work did for you chaps. Now if
you can’t eat, Ahmik and I will feel that we didn’t walk you fast
enough today, and we’ll have to do better tomorrow, eh, Ahmik?”
Amesbury’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
“Ugh! Big walk tomorrow. Very far. Very fast,” and Ahmik grinned.
“Goodness!” exclaimed Paul. “If we have to walk any farther or faster
tomorrow than we did today, I’ll just collapse. I’m so stiff now I can
hardly move.”
“That’s always the case for a day or two when a fellow starts out for
the first time on snowshoes and does a full day’s work. It won’t last
long, but we’ll take it a little slower tomorrow, to let you get
hardened to it,” Amesbury consoled.
When they stopped to boil the kettle the following day Paul was
scarcely able to lift his feet from the snow. Sharp pains in the
calves of his legs and in his hips and groins were excruciating, and
he sat down upon his toboggan very thankful for the opportunity to
rest.
“How is it? Pretty tired?” asked Amesbury, good-naturedly.
“A little stiff--and tired,” answered Paul, whose pride would not
permit him to admit how hard it was for him to keep up.
“We’ll take a little easier gait this afternoon. I didn’t realize we
were hitting it off so hard as we were this morning.”
“Thank you.” Paul wished to say “Don’t go slow on my account,” but he
realized how utterly impossible it would be for him to keep the more
rapid pace.
When luncheon was disposed of and they again fell into line, the pain
was so intense that he could scarcely restrain from crying out. But he
kept going, and saying to himself:
“I won’t be a quitter. I _won’t_ be a quitter.” He began to lag
wofully, however, in spite of his determination and grit, and the
slower pace which Amesbury had set. Thus they traveled silently on for
nearly an hour, when all at once Amesbury stopped, held up his hand as
a signal to the others to halt and remain quiet. Dropping his toboggan
rope he stole stealthily forward and was quickly lost to view.
Presently a rifle shot rang out, and immediately another. A moment
later Amesbury strode back for his toboggan, where the others were
awaiting him, humming as he came:
“‘His body will make a nice little stew,
And his giblets will make me a little pie, too.’”
“Come along, fellows,” he called. “Two caribou the reward of
vigilance. We’ll skin ’em.”
Just within the woods, at the edge of an open, wind-swept marsh, they
left their toboggans, and a hundred yards beyond lay the carcasses of
the two caribou Amesbury had killed.
“There was a band of a dozen,” he explained, as they walked out to the
game. “I thought we could use about two of them very nicely.”
“Good!” remarked Ahmik, drawing his knife to begin the process of
skinning at once.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Amesbury, “unless you chaps would like to
help here, suppose you pitch the tent. We’ll not go any farther
today.”
“That’s bully!” exclaimed Paul, who had been at the point of declaring
his inability to walk another mile.
“Everything’s bully,” declared Amesbury, “and fresh meat just now is
the bulliest thing could have come our way. All right, fellows; you
get camp going. You’d find skinning pretty hard work in this weather,
but Ahmik and I don’t mind it.”
“My, but I’m glad we don’t have to go any farther today,” said Paul
when he and Dan returned to make camp. “I’m just done for. I can
hardly move my feet.”
“Does un pain much?” asked Dan, sympathetically.
“You bet it does,” and Paul winced.
“Where is un hurtin’ most now?”
“Here, and here,” indicating his hips, groins and calves.
“Lift un feet--higher.”
“Oh! Ouch!”
“Why weren’t you sayin’ so, now? ’Tis sure th’ snowshoe ailment, an’
not just stiffness. Mr. Amesbury’d not be goin’ on, an’ you havin’
that.”
“I thought it was just stiffness, and would wear off if I kept going.
Besides, I didn’t want to be a baby and complain.”
“’Tis no stiffness. ’Tis th’ snowshoe ailment, an’ ’twould get worse,
an’ no better, with travelin’. ’Tis wonderful troublesome sometimes.
Dad says if you gets un, stop an’ camp where you is, an’ bide there
till she gets better. ’Tis th’ only way there is, Dad says, t’ cure
un.”
“I never heard of it before.”
“Now I’ll be pitchin’ th’ tent, an’ you sits on th’ flat-sled an’
keeps still.”
“Oh, I’d freeze if I sat down. I’d rather help.”
They had just got the tent up and a roaring fire in the stove when
Amesbury and Ahmik came for toboggans upon which to haul the meat to
camp.
“I’m thinkin’,” said Dan, “we’ll have t’ be bidin’ here a bit. Paul’s
havin’ th’ snowshoe ailment bad.”
“What’s the trouble, Paul?” asked Amesbury.
Paul explained.
“Why, you’re suffering from _mal de raquet_. Dan’s right; we must stay
here till you’re better--a day or two will fix that. Mustn’t try to
travel with _mal de raquet_. It’s a mighty uncomfortable companion.”
At the end of two days, however, Paul was in fairly good condition
again, and the journey was resumed without further interruption, save
twice they were compelled by storms to remain a day in camp.
Two weeks had elapsed since leaving the post when finally, late one
afternoon, Amesbury shouted back to the lads:
“Come along, fellows. We’re here at last.”
Ahmik had stopped and was shoveling snow with one of his snowshoes
from the door of a low log cabin, half covered with drifts. It was
situated in the center of a small clearing among the fir trees which
looked out upon the white frozen expanse of South Indian Lake.
“This is our castle,” Amesbury announced as Paul and Dan joined him.
“Here we’re to live in luxurious comfort. That’s the southern
extremity of Indian Lake. What do you think of it?”
“’Tis a wonderful fine place t’ live in if th’ trappin’s good,” said
Dan.
“It looks mighty good to me. What a dandy place it must be in summer!”
Paul exclaimed.
Ahmik now had the door cleared and they entered. The cabin contained a
single square room. At one side was a flat-topped sheet-iron stove,
similar in design to the tent stove commonly in use in the north, but
of considerably larger proportions and heavier material. Near it was a
rough table, in the end opposite the door stood a rough-hewn bedstead,
the bed neatly made up with white spread and pillow cases. A shelf of
well-thumbed books--the _Bible_, _Shakespeare_, _Thomas à Kempis_,
Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, Wordsworth’s
_Poems_, _Robinson Crusoe_, _Mother Goose’s Melodies_, _Aesop’s
Fables_, _David Copperfield_, and some random novels and volumes of
travel and adventure. On one end of a second table, evidently used as
a writing desk, were neatly piled old magazines and newspapers, on the
other end lay some sheet music and a violin, and in the center were
writing materials.
The chairs, like all of the furniture, were doubtless the handiwork of
Amesbury himself. Everything in the room was spotlessly clean and in
order. The setting sun sent a shaft of sunlight through a window,
giving the room an air of brightness, and enhancing its atmosphere of
homely comfort.
When the fire which Amesbury lighted in the stove began to crackle, he
asked:
“Well, fellows, how do you like my den? Think you can be comfortable
here for three or four months?”
“’Tis grand, sir,” said Dan.
“Mr. Amesbury, it’s splendid!” declared Paul.
Both lads had been long enough from home, and had endured sufficient
buffeting of the wilderness to measure by contrast with their recent
experiences the attractions of Amesbury’s cabin, and it appealed to
them as little short of luxurious.
“Not splendid, but good enough for a trapper. Hang up your things;
you’ll find pegs. Make yourselves at home now. Sit down and rest up.
Ahmik will take care of the stuff outside,” and as Amesbury went
about the preparation of supper he sang:
“‘There was an old woman, and what do you think?
She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink:
Victuals and drink were the chief of her diet;
This tiresome old woman could never be quiet.’”
Luscious caribou steaks were soon frying, biscuits were baking, and
presently the delicious odor of coffee filled the room.
“I always keep coffee here,” explained Amesbury. “Rather have it than
tea, but it’s too bulky to carry when I’m hitting the trail.”
“It’s the first smell of coffee I’ve had since we left the ship, and
oh, but it smells bully to me!” said Paul.
Candles were lighted, a snowy white cloth spread on the table. When at
length they sat down to eat, Amesbury, with bowed head, asked grace.
“’Tis good,” remarked Dan, accepting a liberal piece of caribou meat,
“t’ hear un say grace. Dad always says un.”
“I neglect it when I’m on the trail,” said Amesbury. “My father was a
preacher. He always said grace at home, and it’s second nature to me
to do it when I sit at a table. Part of eating. We mustn’t forget, you
know, that we owe what we have to a higher Power, and we shouldn’t
forget to give thanks.”
“That’s what Dad would be sayin’, now.” Dan had admired Amesbury
before, but this comparison of him with his father was the highest
compliment he could have paid him, and indicated the highest regard
for his friend.
“I’ll tell you, chaps, my theory of the way the Lord gives us our
blessings. He gives us eyes and hands and feet, and best of all He
gives us brains with which to reason things out. Then He provides the
land with all its products, the birds and animals and forests. He
gives us the sea with its products, too. He intends that we use our
brains in devising methods of applying the products of earth and sea
to our needs, and to use our hands and feet and eyes to carry out what
our brain tells us how to do. If I hadn’t used my eyes and hands and
feet the Lord never would have put this venison on the table.”
“That’s just what Dad says,” agreed Dan. “He says they ain’t no use
prayin’ for things when they’s a way t’ get un yourself.”
“Your dad’s right. If you chaps had just spent your time praying when
you went adrift on that ice pan, you’d be at the bottom of Hudson Bay
now. Yes, your dad’s right. Thank the Lord for the things that come
your way, but get up and hustle first, or they won’t come your way.
Use your brains and your hands. That’s the thing to do.”
Supper finished, Amesbury and Ahmik cut tobacco from black plugs,
filled their pipes; Amesbury whittled some long shavings from a stick
of dry wood, lighted an end of a shaving by pushing it through the
stove vent, and applied it to his pipe; Ahmik followed his example,
and then turned his attention to washing dishes.
Puffing contentedly at his pipe, Amesbury lifted the violin from its
case, settled himself before the stove and began tuning the
instrument.
“I likes t’ hear fiddlin’ wonderful well,” remarked Dan.
“That’s good, for I’m going to fiddle. Do you like it, too, Densmore?”
“I’m very fond of music.”
“Then, no one objecting, I’ll begin.”
Amesbury began playing very softly. Dan sat in open-mouthed wonder,
eyes wide, and scarcely breathing. Paul was enthralled. It was a
master hand that held the bow. The player himself seemed quite
unconscious of his listeners and surroundings. The wrinkles smoothed
out of the corners of his eyes, the alert twinkle left the eyes and a
soft, dreamy expression came into them, as though they beheld some
beautiful vision. He seemed transfigured as Paul looked at him.
Another being had taken the place of the ungainly, rough-clad trapper.
For a full hour he played. Then laying his violin across his knees sat
silent for a little. The music had cast a spell upon them. Even
Ahmik, who had seated himself near the table, had let his pipe die
out.
All at once the humorous wrinkles came again into the corners of
Amesbury’s eyes, and the eyes began to sparkle and laugh. He arose and
returned the violin to its case, humming as he did so:
“‘Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.’
“I always like a little music after supper,” he remarked, resuming his
seat.
“Oh, ’twere more than music!” exclaimed Dan. “’T were--’t were--I’m
thinkin’--’t were like in heaven. ’T weren’t fiddlin’, sir. ’T were
music of angels in th’ fiddle, sir.”
“That’s the best compliment I ever received,” laughed Amesbury.
“Mr. Amesbury,” asked Paul, “where did you ever learn to play like
that? I heard Madagowski, the great Polish violinist that every one
raved over last year. I thought it was great then, but after hearing
you it seems just common.”
“You chaps will make me vain if you keep this up,” and Amesbury
laughed again.
“But where did you learn?” insisted Paul. “And what ever made you turn
trapper?”
Amesbury’s face grew suddenly grave, almost agonized.
“Oh, Mr. Amesbury!” Paul exclaimed, feeling instinctively that he had
made a mistake in urging the question. “If I shouldn’t ask, don’t tell
me! I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Paul,” said Amesbury, quietly. “I’ll tell you the
story. It may be well for you to hear it.”