CAMPING UNDER THE GIANT PINES
Tom Gray heard the two crash into the bushes, as he was on his way to
the scene followed by Joe Shafto and part of the Overland outfit.
As he went down Hippy had the presence of mind to thrust both hands
under the bear's chin and press upward with all his strength, though, in
that tight embrace, it was difficult to do anything except gasp for
breath and wonder how long it would be before he heard the snap of his
ribs breaking in.
With the bear's breath hot on his face, Lieutenant Wingate afterwards
remembered wondering why it was that Henry did not bite when the biting
was good. Never having bitten a human being and having no recollection,
in all probability, of any associates outside of human beings the bear
may not have been inclined to bite.
On the other hand, the bear's temper appeared to be rising, for his
growls were growing more menacing with the seconds.
"Hindenburg! Sick 'im!" gasped Hippy.
He heard the pup, weak from loss of blood, give a feeble yelp, then a
snarl, and in the next second Hindenburg had fastened his teeth in
Henry's neck.
A heavy paw swept Hindenburg away and left him quivering and moaning.
The respite had been sufficient, however, to enable Lieutenant Wingate
to roll out of the clutches of the beast, but his freedom was brief.
Hippy had hardly sprung to his feet when the bear rose and snatched him
again.
It was at this juncture that Tom and the guide arrived, just in time to
see Hippy Wingate deliver another blow squarely on Henry's all too
tender nose.
"Henry!" yelled the woman. "Let go, Henry!"
Henry plainly was in no mood to let go, and it was evident that it was
now his intention to bite and bite hard, for the snarling mouth was wide
open when Joe Shafto sprang to the rescue. Joe carried a hardwood club,
which she evidently carried as a handy weapon.
"Now will ye mind me!" she shrieked, bringing the club down with a
mighty whack on the bridge of Henry's head. "Take that, and that, and
that!" she added, delivering three more resounding whacks.
Henry uttered a howl, released his hold on Hippy Wingate and rolled over
on his back, feet in the air, where he lay whining and plainly begging
for mercy like a child that was being punished.
Hippy had quickly rolled out of the way and jumped up, his face bloody,
and his clothes showing rents where Henry's claws had raked them. Hippy
ran to Hindenburg whom he found whimpering and licking his wounds.
"You poor fish! Why did you do it?" rebuked Lieutenant Wingate.
"Git up!" commanded Joe Shafto, poking Henry in the ribs with her stick.
"Come with me and behave yerself, or I'll wallop ye till ye won't be
able to smell venison for a year of Sundays." The guide fastened on one
of Henry's ears and started for the trail, Henry ambling along meekly at
her side. "Lieutenant, keep that pup away from my Henry," ordered Joe.
"Joe, keep that bear away from my pup," retorted Hippy, carrying
Hindenburg in his arms and gently depositing him in the saddle bag.
"Oh, Hippy, what happened to you?" cried Emma.
"I've been communing with nature," he answered briefly.
"Darlin', let me wipe the blood from your face," crooned Nora. "Did the
naughty bear scratch oo bootiful face?"
The Overlanders shouted and Hippy, very red of face, sprang into his
saddle with such a jolt that Ginger gave him a lively minute of bucking
in which poor Hindenburg got a shaking up that made him whimper.
The forest woman with her mules had already started and was now some
distance in the lead, with her pet bear shuffling along at the edge of
the road abreast of the leading mule.
"Ye git nothin' to eat to-day, Henry. I didn't bring ye up to brawl and
to fit with yaller dogs, ye lazy lout," scolded Joe.
When the party halted for its noon rest and luncheon, Henry sat morosely
at one side of their camping place, now and then licking his chops,
while Hindenburg, performing the same service for his wounds, occupied a
position on the opposite side of the camp. Neither animal appeared to be
aware of the other's existence.
"Behold the forest," said Tom Gray later in the afternoon, halting his
pony on a rise of ground, and encompassing a wide range of country with
a sweep of his arm.
It was an undulating sea of deep green, almost as limitless as the sky
itself, that the Overland Riders gazed upon.
"Them's the Big North Woods," Joe informed them. "We take a log trail
just beyond here, and to-night we'll be in the 'Pineys.'"
"And to-morrow I shall be off and at work," announced Tom.
They were soon picking their way along a shady fragrant trail, tall,
straight, noble pines about them seeming to be vieing with each other in
their efforts to reach the blue sky. The wind now bore a new fragrance,
and the air was heavily pungent with the odor of pine.
"Emma, does your nature cult explain to you why the trees grow so tall
and so straight?" asked Tom, riding up beside Miss Dean.
Emma shook her head.
"Because they are fighting the battle of nature--fighting for existence,
for their very lives, just as all the world of humans is fighting its
battle. A tree must have light and air, or it dies. To get these it must
grow up, it must keep up with its competitors, the trees about it, and
forge ahead of them if possible, ever reaching up and up for sunlight
and air. Once let it fall behind and it is lost; it is overwhelmed by
the sturdier giants; it pales and pines and seems to lose its ambition.
The tree, knowing it has lost its grip, then seems to grow thin and
gaunt, and one day it goes crashing down, to rot and furnish
nourishment for the giants that overwhelmed it. The tree's life, like
ours, is a struggle for existence, with the survival of the fittest."
"Were I a tree I think I should prefer to grow alone out in an open
field," decided Emma.
"Not if you were a wise tree, you would not," laughed Tom. "Out there
you would be the plaything of the winds. Your body would be exposed to
the glaring sun, the full blast of every passing storm, and the bitter
cold of winter, which would, unless you were very hardy, have a tendency
to retard your growth and weaken your vigor. Trees, like humans, do not
enjoy a lonely life, but when they get together they immediately enter
into bitter competition. Isn't that quite human?"
"Where are you heading, Mrs. Shafto?" interrupted Grace, as the guide
struck off, leaving the trail and entering the dense forest.
"Goin' to find a campin' place while I kin see," she answered. Now and
then Joe would halt to examine an old blaze on a tree, occasionally
making a new blaze with her short-handled woodsman's axe on the opposite
side of the tree so that, upon returning along that trail, the new blaze
might be easily seen.
"I fear that I was not born with a woodsman's sense," complained Anne.
"No one is. That is why a woodsman blazes trees," answered Tom. "I do
not know whether you people are familiar with 'blazes.' Grace knows
something about them."
"The only 'blaze' I know anything about is the blaze I make when I try
to start a cook fire," laughed Hippy.
"You will need more knowledge than that if you stray a hundred yards
from camp in the Pineries," replied Tom as they rode along. "A blaze is
made by a single downward stroke of the axe, the object being to expose
a good-sized spot of the whitish sapwood, which, set in the dark
framework of the bark, is a staring mark that is certain to attract
attention."
"Yes, but suppose the traveler tries to find the trail a year or so
later?" questioned the practical Elfreda. "Hasn't it grown up so high
that he can't see it?"
"No. A blaze always remains at its original height above the ground,
because a tree increases its height and girth only by building on top of
the previous growth. There is much of interest that I could tell you
along this line, but I will merely describe the various blazes and their
meanings, leaving the rest until some other time. It is well to remember
that a trail blazed in a forest is likely to have been made either by a
hunter, a lumberman, a timber-looker, or a surveyor. A hunter's line is
apt to be inconspicuous. So is a timber-looker's, because he is
searching for a bonanza and doesn't wish anyone else to discover it. A
surveyor's line is always absolutely straight, except where it meets an
insurmountable object, when it makes a right-angle turn to avoid the
object, then goes straight ahead again.
"All trees that stand directly on the line of a survey have two notches
cut on each side of them and are called 'sight trees.' Bushes on or near
the line are bent by the woodsman at right angles to it.
"When a blaze line turns abruptly so that a person following it might
otherwise overlook it, a long slash is made on that side of the tree
which faces the new direction. There are other forms of blazes, such as
marking section corners, boundaries and the like, which it is
unnecessary for you to know now, but with which it might be wise for you
to familiarize yourselves as you go along. This is the end of your first
lesson."
"There's the fork of the river that we are goin' to camp on," called
Joe, riding down a steep bank, followed by the Overlanders, their ponies
slipping and sliding until they had reached the more level ground near
the stream.
"We camp here," announced the forest woman. "If ye don't like it, pick
out yer own camp. The bear and I stay right here."
Dismounting, Tom strode over to the tree under which Joe had announced
her intention of making camp, and, placing a hand on it, gazed up along
its length, then at the adjacent trees.
"She's stood here for a hundred years or more, and I reckon no wind will
blow her down to-night. All right!" announced Tom.
"Get busy, girls," called Grace.
The Overlanders, dismounting, inhaled deeply of the air, heavily pungent
with the odor of the pine, then set to work with a vim to pitch their
camp. Tom, in the meantime, climbed the bank to look at a huge pile of
logs that lay on a skidway above their camping place.
"Someone got left last spring," he said upon his return to his
companions. "Those logs were cut last winter, but the water in the river
last spring was evidently too low to float them down, so they must stay
where they are until next spring awaiting the freshets. The blocks will
then be knocked from under the skidway and those hundreds of thousands
of feet of timber will go thundering down into the river. You will
observe that they have cut a channel or 'travoy,' as it is called,
through which the logs will roll after leaving the skidway, and pass on
to the stream. This 'travoy' is pretty well grown over with second
growth, but the logs will roll the growth down, and when they do you
would think that all the tremendous forces of nature had been let
loose."
By this time the camp was nearly finished, and the tents of the
Overlanders looked like tiny doll houses under those giant pines, and in
this, the very heart of nature, in the silence and the grandeur of it
all, the girls felt a deep sense of something that they could not
define, which left them disinclined to laugh or chatter.
Soon after dark the sky became overcast, the pines began dripping
moisture, and a gentle breeze was heard murmuring in the tops of the
trees.
"Come, little nature child! What are the wild winds in the tree-tops
saying?" teased Hippy, breaking an awed silence of several minutes.
"I--I don't rightly know," answered Emma, after listening intently to
the whisperings in the pines. "I--I think that the message they are
trying to convey to me--to us--is a warning of something to come,
something that is near at hand. I wish Madam Gersdorff were here. She
could read the warning and tell us what peril it is that is hovering
over us."
Nora uttered a shrill peal of laughter.
"Don't," begged Anne.
"You've got a bad attack of the willies," groaned Hippy in a tone of
disgust that brought a half-hearted laugh from his companions, though,
had they been willing to admit it, they too felt something of the
depression that was reflected in Emma Dean's face and voice.
Work on the camp finished, the Overland Riders put out the fire and
turned in, Henry rolling himself up into a furry ball, Hindenburg
snuggling down between Tom and Hippy. Only forest sounds, now faint and
far away, marred the solemn impressive stillness of the Big North Woods,
a stillness that was destined to be rudely interrupted ere the dawn of
another day.