THE VALLEY OF ENCHANTMENT
ROGER knew what was expected of him under such conditions. A regard
for his own safety induced him to roll aside. If the wounded animal
endeavored to fasten upon his body in its death throes, he preferred to
be in some other and safer locality.
There was confusion for a minute or so. Roger, after escaping from the
claws of the unseen beast, scrambled first to his knees and then to his
feet. He could not think of going back to search for his gun, because
something was struggling on the very spot, and he could imagine what
that writhing object must be.
So he drew his hunting knife and waited. Then the sounds began to grow
fainter, which the boy knew was a promising sign. Finally all became
still again.
"Dick!" he whispered.
"Yes, I'm here, Roger," he heard his cousin say.
"Is he dead, do you think?" asked the other.
"I have just poked about with the barrel of my gun, and touched him,"
Dick replied. "There's no movement to the body, so I feel sure I
finished him. Come this way; I felt your gun with my foot just now."
They had no means of seeing the motionless form of Dick's quarry,
unless they chose to go to great trouble with flint and steel and
tinder. There was really no need of this, because all of them were
familiar with the denizens of the forest; so that, using their hands,
they readily ascertained the nature of the invader of the camp.
"Why, it's only a wildcat, after all, Dick!" exclaimed Roger, a note of
disappointment in his tones, as he came upon the abbreviated tail. "I
was so sure it was the painter we heard crying earlier in the night."
"I thought the same way, Roger," confessed the other, "until I came to
feel the fur, when something told me it was different. But we never yet
killed such a wildcat as this, in all our tramping."
"It does seem to be a monster," admitted the other.
"It is not only the size I meant, Roger, but feel of the ears."
"Why, how very strange, Dick; for all the world like a tassel at the
end! What kind of a beast have we run across? We never saw wildcats
like this along the Missouri, you know."
"I have heard old voyageurs tell about a species they meet with further
north in the cold country of the Chippewas and the Crees. They call it
a lynx in Canada. It is a very fierce beast, all accounts agree."
"But, Dick, think of his coming right into our camp, and trying to
carry me off! I never would have believed it if any one had told the
story. He tugged at my leg again and again. It was that woke me up, I
expect. If that's the kind of wildcats they have in this country, I am
not surprised at the Indians keeping away from this region."
"There must be some reason for the beast acting as it did. I think we
will find that in rolling about you must have managed to get over the
spot where Benjamin laid our stock of pemmican, and that was what the
beast was after."
"Oh! do you think so?" remarked Roger, heaving a sigh of relief. "Well,
I shall be glad to believe he was not trying to carry me off. But all
the same, Dick, you never before heard of a wildcat being so bold."
"I never did, and that is a fact," admitted Dick.
They settled down once more, though this time Roger changed his
position so as to make sure he would not invite a repetition of the
attack. Mayhew, too, had taken warning from the adventure; he proceeded
to fasten their stock of dried venison to the limb of a tree in such a
way that it would be safe from the depredations of any hungry animal.
That one alarm was not repeated. Throughout the balance of the night
prowling wild beasts might roam the forest and seek their prey, but
they gave the camp of the little party a wide berth. Perhaps they
scented trouble in the blood of their kind that had already been
spilled.
With the coming of dawn the boys were up and doing. Roger examined the
stiffened form of the lynx with much curiosity. He seemed to be of the
opinion that, since the ice had now been broken, they were apt to run
across many other strange creatures, the like of which they had never
before set eyes on.
Indeed, before they had been an hour on the way that morning, they
began to notice that a remarkable change was taking place in the
character of their surroundings. The sun's rays, falling on the face of
a hill, filled them with awe, for it seemed to reveal almost every hue
of the rainbow. Here a waterfall burst upon their vision, the stream
dropping fully a hundred feet, and looking like a bridal wreath as
the light breeze carried the fine spray to leeward, through several
rainbows.
"The Enchanted Land, of a truth, Dick!" was Roger's comment, as they
came to a full stop, to gaze upon these remarkable sights.
"Already it begins to look to me as though there might be some truth in
the weird stories the Indians have been telling about this country up
here," the other boy confessed.
As for Mayhew, the guide, he could not find words to describe the
mingled feelings of admiration and wonder that filled his soul. None of
them dreamed of turning back, although they were beginning to encounter
sights such as the eyes of white men had possibly never before beheld.
"Jasper was not dismayed by all this," said Dick, "for we can see that
he and his party kept on, following the course of this river of the
cataracts and the rapids. So we, too, must march on."
"I feel thirsty," remarked Roger, shortly after this, "and as here runs
a nice looking little stream I think I will take a drink."
Dick was about to follow suit when he saw Roger suddenly start up from
his kneeling position, with a look of the most intense astonishment on
his face.
"Why, Dick, it burns me!" he cried. "The water is hot!"
Dick immediately tested it with his hand.
"Just as you say, Roger, it seems as though it might be over a fire. Do
you know, I noticed something like a trace of steam, but I thought it
only such vapor as we often see rising from ice-cold water."
"But who ever before met with boiling water in the open?" asked Roger.
"Why, there must be fires under the earth here, such as leap out of
volcanoes in other countries."
He even rested his hand on the rock close by, but found it cold.
Vegetation grew all around the hot stream and pool, showing that it
never overflowed its banks at any time.
"There's one good thing about it," remarked Dick, turning to the
frontiersman; "after this, if these hot springs are common here, you
will never need to build a fire in order to make a pannikin of tea."
"I can believe almost anything after this," muttered Roger, as he
dabbled his hand in the pool, and quickly snatched it out again, for
the water seemed to almost scald his flesh. "Of course nothing can live
in such a stream. I wonder what next we will run across. Cats with
tassels on their ears, rocks and mud looking like they had been painted
every color going, waterfalls that drop from the clouds, and where
rainbows play hide and seek in the sunlight, and now a boiling spring,
and a hot pool. What if one of us had fallen in here, and could not get
out?"
"We'll soon begin to believe in those stories the red men tell of the
Evil Spirits that live in this enchanted valley," laughed Dick, who
seemed determined not to allow himself to be dismayed by anything
wonderful they might encounter in their wanderings.
"I'm getting that way even now, Dick. I tell you, it wouldn't surprise
me very much if we ran upon one of those monsters they say used to live
in America centuries and centuries ago, much larger than an elephant. I
only hope my rifle speaks true, if ever I have to face anything like
that!"
Leaving the hot spring behind them, they pushed on along the trail made
by Jasper Williams's party. Doubtless those three men were also filled
with wonder at what they saw. Roger more than once expressed doubt as
to whether they would have the courage to continue their explorations
much further, surrounded as they found themselves by such marvelous
freaks of nature.
"It wouldn't surprise me if we met them hurrying back out of here," he
told his companions. "Jasper himself is a bold spirit, but I have a
poor opinion of the two other men with him. I believe they are inclined
to be superstitious, like the Indians, and these things are enough to
make the flesh creep."
Here and there, as openings occurred, they could catch glimpses of
distant peaks that looked like cathedral spires in the gilding rays
of the sun. Dick was drinking in these pictures with eagerness, for
the boy had something of the artist in his nature. He could appreciate
such glorious works wrought by the deft hand of nature more fully than
Roger, who saw rather the practical side of the picture.
Once, during that morning tramp, Roger did receive a fright. It did
not come from any threatened attack on the part of a ferocious wild
beast, nor yet through his narrow escape from falling into some pit
where strange, gurgling, mysterious sounds oozed forth. On the contrary
it was just because it started to snow furiously, so that the whole
landscape was blotted out.
"That settles it, Dick," he exclaimed, in sheer disgust, "we're done
for now. The only thing left us is to head as best we may for the place
we believe the Valley of Wonders lies, and which we must be close to,
right now."
"You are in too big a hurry, Roger," his cousin told him. "Just because
a few flakes chance to come down is no proof that we are in for a
storm. Look up and you will see the blue sky over yonder. It is only a
passing squall, and soon over with, so cheer up."
His prophecy proved true, because in another minute the snow ceased
to fall, and out came the welcome sun again, to once more paint the
hillsides with his wondrous brush, and stripe them with rainbow tints.
"You must own up that most of our troubles come and go like that,"
commented Dick. "At first they seem to be dark and heavy, but all at
once the sun breaks out, and we forget the gloomy past. It ought to be
a lesson to you."
"I know it, Dick, but my nature is different from yours. I am either
bubbling over with joy or else weighed down with foreboding. But we
can see some distance ahead at this point, and I must confess that
there is no sign of a human being, so Jasper and his comrades cannot be
returning along the trail."
"The wind is shifting for one thing," observed Dick, "which may bring
about a change in the weather before very long."
"Listen, what do you suppose that sound can be? If the weather were not
so cold, and the season summer instead of early winter, I would surely
say it was distant thunder!"
All three stood still to listen intently. Presently the far-away
rumbling sound was again borne to their ears; and, just as Roger had
declared, it was like distant thunder coming from beyond the range of
forest-clad hills.
It was not strange that the two boys and the frontiersman turned uneasy
looks upon each other, surrounded as they were by such strange freaks
of nature.