A CASTLE ON THE BRANDYWINE.
Christmas morning the boys awakened early and crept from beneath their
warm bearskins in eager anticipation of gifts from Santa Claus. Of
course they had long before learned who Santa Claus was, but they loved
the story, and in the wisdom of their innocence clung to an illusion
which brought them happiness.
The sun had risen upon a scene such as winter only can produce. Surely
Aladdin had come to Blue River upon the wings of the Christmas storm,
had rubbed his lamp, and lo! the humble cabin was in the heart of a
fairyland such as was never conceived by the mind of a genie. Snow lay
upon the ground like a soft carpet of white velvet ten inches thick. The
boughs of the trees were festooned with a foliage that spring cannot
rival. Even the locust trees, which in their pride of blossom cry out in
June time for our admiration, seemed to say, “See what we can do in
winter;” and the sycamore and beech drooped their branches, as if to
call attention to their winter flowers given by that rarest of artists,
Jack Frost.
The boys quickly donned their heavy buckskin clothing and moccasins, and
climbed down the pole to the room where their father and mother were
sleeping. Jim awakened his parents with a cry of “Christmas Gift,” but
Balser’s attention was attracted to a barrel standing by the fireplace,
which his father had brought from Brookville, and into which the boys
had not been permitted to look the night before. Balser had a shrewd
suspicion of what the barrel contained, and his delight knew no bounds
when he found, as he had hoped, that it was filled with steel traps of
the size used to catch beavers, coons, and foxes.
Since he had owned a gun, Balser’s great desire had been to possess a
number of traps. As I have already told you, the pelts of animals taken
in winter are of great value, and our little hero longed to begin life
on his own account as a hunter and trapper.
I might tell you of the joyous Christmas morning in the humble cabin
when the gifts which Mr. Brent had brought from Brookville were
distributed. I might tell you of the new gown for mother, of the bright,
red mufflers, of the shoes for Sunday wear and the “store” caps for the
boys, to be used upon holiday occasions. I might tell you of the candies
and nuts, and of the rarest of all the gifts, an orange for each member
of the family, for that fruit had never before been seen upon Blue
River. But I must take you to the castle on Brandywine.
You may wonder how there came to be a castle in the wilderness on
Brandywine, but I am sure, when you learn about it, you will declare
that it was fairer than any castle ever built of mortar and stone, and
that the adventures which befell our little heroes were as glorious as
ever fell to the lot of spurred and belted knight.
Immediately after breakfast, when the chores had all been finished,
Balser and Jim started down the river to visit Liney and Tom. Balser
carried with him two Christmas presents for his friends—a steel trap for
Tom, and the orange which his father had brought him from Brookville for
Liney.
I might also tell you of Tom’s delight when he received the trap, and of
Liney’s smile of pleasure, worth all the oranges in the world, when she
received her present; and I might fell you how she divided the orange
into pieces, and gave one to each of the family; and how, after it had
all been eaten, tears came to her bright eyes when she learned that
Balser had not tasted the fruit. I might tell you much more that would
be interesting, and show you how good and true and gentle were these
honest, simple folk, but I must drop it all and begin my story.
Balser told Tom about the traps, and a trapping expedition was quickly
agreed upon between the boys.
The next day Tom went to visit Balser, and for three or four days the
boys were busily engaged in making two sleds upon which to carry
provisions for their campaign. The sleds when finished were each about
two feet broad and six feet long. They were made of elm, and were very
strong, and were so light that when loaded the boys could easily draw
them over the snow. By the time the sleds were finished the snow was
hard, and everything was ready for the moving of the expedition.
First, the traps were packed. Then provisions, consisting of sweet
potatoes, a great lump of maple sugar, a dozen loaves of white bread,
two or three gourds full of butter, a side of bacon, a bag of meal, a
large piece of bear meat for the dogs, and a number of other articles
and simple utensils such as the boys would need in cooking, were loaded
upon the sleds. They took with them no meat other than bacon and the
bear meat for the dogs, for they knew they could make traps from the
boughs of trees in which they could catch quail and pheasants, and were
sure to be able, in an hour’s hunting, to provide enough venison to
supply their wants for a much longer time than they would remain in
camp. There were also wild turkeys to be killed, and fish to be caught
through openings which the boys would make in the ice of the creek.
Over the loaded sleds they spread woolly bearskins to be used for beds
and covering during the cold nights, and they also took with them a
number of tanned deerskins, with which to carpet the floor of their
castle and to close its doors and windows. Tom took with him his
wonderful hatchet, an axe, and his father’s rifle. Axe, hatchets, and
knives had been sharpened, and bullets had been moulded in such vast
numbers that one would have thought the boys were going to war. Powder
horns were filled, and a can of that precious article was placed
carefully upon each of the sleds.
Bright and early one morning Balser, Tom, and Jim, and last, but by no
means least, Tige and Prince, crossed Blue River, and started in a
northwestern direction toward a point on Brandywine where a number of
beaver dams were known to exist, ten miles distant from the Brent cabin.
[Illustration: EN ROUTE FOR THE CASTLE.]
Tom and Tige drew one of the sleds, and Balser and Prince drew the
other. During the first part of the trip, Jim would now and then lend a
helping hand, but toward the latter end of the journey he said he
thought it would be better for him to ride upon one of the sleds to keep
the load from falling off. Balser and Tom, however, did not agree with
him, nor did the dogs; so Jim walked behind and grumbled, and had his
grumbling for his pains, as usually is the case with grumblers.
[Illustration]
Two or three hours before sunset the boys reached Brandywine, a babbling
little creek in springtime, winding its crooked rippling way through
overhanging boughs of water elm, sycamore, and willows, but, at the time
of our heroes’ expedition, frozen over with the mail of winter. It is in
small creeks, such as Brandywine, that beavers love to make their dams.
Our little caravan, upon reaching Brandywine, at once took to the ice
and started up-stream along its winding course.
Jim had grown tired. “I don’t believe you fellows know where you’re
going,” said he. “I don’t see any place to camp.”
“You’ll see it pretty quickly,” said Balser; and when they turned a bend
in the creek they beheld a huge sycamore springing from a little valley
that led down to the water’s edge.
“There’s our home,” said Balser.
The sycamore was hollow, and at its roots was an opening for a doorway.
Upon beholding the tree Jim gave a cry of delight, and was for entering
their new home at once, but Balser held him back and sent in the dogs as
an exploring advance guard. Soon the dogs came out and informed the boys
that everything within the tree was all right, and Balser and Tom and
Jim stooped low and entered upon the possession of their castle on
Brandywine.
The first task was to sweep out the dust and dry leaves. This the boys
did with bundles of twigs rudely fashioned into brooms. The dry leaves
and small tufts of black hair gave evidence all too strongly that the
castle which the boys had captured was the home of some baron bear who
had incautiously left his stronghold unguarded. Jim spoke of this fact
with unpleasant emphasis, and was ready to “bet” that the bear would
come back when they were all asleep, and would take possession of his
castle and devour the intruders.
“_What_ will you bet?” said Tom.
“I didn’t say I would bet anything. I just said I’d bet, and you’ll see
I’m right,” returned Jim.
Balser and Tom well knew that Jim’s prophecy might easily come true, but
they had faith in the watchfulness of their sentinels, Tige and Prince,
and the moon being at its full, they hoped rather than feared that his
bearship might return, and were confident that, in case he did, his
danger would be greater than theirs.
After the castle floor had been carefully swept, the boys carried in the
deerskins and spread them on the ground for a carpet. The bearskins were
then taken in, and the beds were made; traps, guns, and provisions were
stored away, and the sleds were drawn around to one side of the door,
and placed leaning against the tree.
The boys were hungry, and Jim insisted that supper should be prepared at
once; but Tom, having made several trips around the tree, remarked
mysteriously that he had a plan of his own. He said there was a great
deal of work to be done before sundown, and that supper could be eaten
after dark when they could not work. Tom was right, for the night gave
promise of bitter cold.
Limpy did not tell his plans at once, but soon they were developed.
The hollow in the tree in which the boys had made their home was almost
circular in form. It was at least ten or eleven feet in diameter, and
extended up into the tree twenty or thirty feet. Springing from the same
root, and a part of the parent tree, grew two large sprouts or branches,
which at a little distance looked like separate trees. They were,
however, each connected with the larger tree, and the three formed one.
“What on earth are you pounding at that tree for?” asked Jim, while Tom
was striking one of the smaller trees with the butt end of the hatchet,
and listening intently as if he expected to hear a response.
Tom did not reply to Jim, but in a moment entered the main tree with axe
in hand, and soon Balser and Jim heard him chopping.
The two boys at once followed Tom, to learn what their eccentric
companion was doing. Tom did not respond to their questions, but after
he had chopped vigorously for a few minutes the result of his work gave
them an answer, for he soon cut an opening into the smaller tree, which
was also hollow. Tom had discovered the hollow by striking the tree with
his hatchet. In fact, Tom was a genius after his own peculiar pattern.
The newly discovered hollow proved to be three or four feet in diameter,
and, like that in the larger tree, extended to a considerable height.
After Tom had made the opening between the trees, he sat upon the
ground, and with his hatchet hewed it to an oval shape, two feet high
and two feet broad.
Jim could not imagine why Tom had taken so much trouble to add another
room to their house, which was already large enough. But when Tom,
having finished the opening upon the inside, went out and began to climb
the smaller tree with the help of a few low-growing branches, the
youngest member of the expedition became fully convinced in his own mind
that the second in command was out of his head entirely. When Tom,
having climbed to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, began to chop with
his hatchet, Jim remarked, in most emphatic language, that he thought “a
fellow who would chop at a sycamore tree just for the sake of making
chips, when he might be eating his supper, was too big a fool to live.”
Tom did not respond to Jim’s sarcasm, but persevered in his chopping
until he had made an opening at the point to which he had climbed.
Balser had quickly guessed the object of Tom’s mighty labors, but he did
not enlighten Jim. He had gone to other work, and by the time Tom had
made the opening from the outside of the smaller tree, had collected a
pile of firewood, and had carried several loads of it into the castle.
Then Tom came down, and Jim quickly followed him into the large tree,
for by that time his mysterious movements were full of interest to the
little fellow.
Now what do you suppose was Tom’s object in wasting so much time and
energy with his axe and hatchet?
A fireplace.
You will at once understand that the opening which Tom had cut in the
tree at the height of twelve or fifteen feet was for the purpose of
making a chimney through which the smoke might escape.
The boys kindled a fire, and in a few minutes there was a cheery blaze
in their fireplace that lighted up the room and made “everything look
just like home,” Jim said.
Then Jim went outside and gave a great hurrah of delight when he saw the
smoke issuing from the chimney that ingenious Tom had made with his
hatchet.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE ON THE BRANDYWINE.]
Jim watched the smoke for a few moments, and then walked around the tree
to survey the premises. The result of his survey was the discovery of a
hollow in the third tree of their castle, and when he informed Balser
and Tom of the important fact, it was agreed that the room which Jim had
found should be prepared for Tige and Prince. The dogs were not
fastidious, and a sleeping-place was soon made for them entirely to
their satisfaction.
Meantime the fire was blazing and crackling in the fireplace, and the
boys began to prepare supper. They had not had time to kill game, so
they fried a few pieces of bacon and a dozen eggs, of which they had
brought a good supply, and roasted a few sweet potatoes in the ashes.
Then they made an opening in the ice, from which they drew a bucketful
of sparkling ice water, and when all was ready they sat down to supper,
served with the rarest of all dressings, appetite sauce, and at least
one of the party, Jim, was happy as a boy could be.
The dogs then received their supper of bear meat.
The members of the expedition, from the commanding officer Balser to the
high privates Tige and Prince, were very tired after their hard day’s
work, and when Tom and Balser showed the dogs their sleeping-place, they
curled up close to each other and soon were in the land of dog dreams.
By the time supper was finished night had fallen, and while Tom and
Balser were engaged in stretching a deerskin across the door to exclude
the cold air, Jim crept between the bearskins and soon was sound asleep,
dreaming no doubt of suppers and dinners and breakfasts, and scolding in
his dreams like the veritable little grumbler that he was. A great bed
of embers had accumulated in the fireplace, and upon them Balser placed
a hickory knot for the purpose of retaining fire till morning, and then
he covered the fire with ashes.
After all was ready Balser and Tom crept in between the bearskins, and
lying spoon-fashion, one on each side of Jim, lost no time in making a
rapid, happy journey to the land of Nod.
Tom slept next to the wall, next to Tom lay Jim, and next to Jim was
Balser. The boys were lying with their feet to the fire, and upon the
opposite side of the room was the doorway closed by the deerskin, of
which I have already told you.
Of course they went to bed “all standing,” as sailors say when they lie
down to sleep with their clothing on, for the weather was cold, and the
buckskin clothing and moccasins were soft and pleasant to sleep in, and
would materially assist the bearskins in keeping the boys warm.
It must have been a pretty sight in the last flickering light of the
smouldering fire to see the three boys huddled closely together, covered
by the bearskins. I have no doubt had you seen them upon that night they
would have appeared to you like a sleeping bear. In fact, before the
night was over they did appear to—but I must not go ahead of my story.
The swift-winged hours of darkness sped like moments to the sleeping
boys. The smouldering coals in the fireplace were black and lustreless.
The night wind softly moaned through the branches of the sycamore, and
sighed as it swept the bare limbs of the willows and the rustling tops
of the underbrush. Jack Frost was silently at work, and the cold, clear
air seemed to glitter in the moonlight. It was an hour past midnight.
Had the boys been awake and listening, or had Tige and Prince been
attending to their duties as sentinels, they would have heard a crisp
noise of footsteps, as the icy surface of the snow cracked, and as dead
twigs broke beneath a heavy weight. Ah, could the boys but awaken! Could
the dogs be aroused but for one instant from their deep lethargy of
slumber!
Balser! Tom! Jim! Tige! Prince! Awaken! Awaken!
On comes the heavy footfall, cautiously. As it approaches the castle a
few hurried steps are taken, and the black, awkward form lifts his head
and sniffs the air for signs of danger.
The baron has returned to claim his own, and Jim’s prophecy, at least in
part, has come true. The tracks upon the snow left by the boys and dogs,
and the sleds leaning against the tree, excite the bear’s suspicion, and
he stands like a statue for five minutes, trying to make up his mind
whether or not he shall enter his old domain. The memory of his cozy
home tempts him, and he cautiously walks to the doorway of his house.
The deerskin stretched across the opening surprises him, and he
carefully examines it with the aid of his chief counsellor, his nose.
Then he thrusts it aside with his head and enters.
He sees the boys on the opposite side of the tree, and doubtless fancies
that his mate has gotten home before him, so he complacently lies down
beside the bearskins, and soon, he, too, is in the land of bear dreams.
When a bear sleeps he snores, and the first loud snort from the baron’s
nostrils aroused Balser. At first Balser’s mind was in confusion, and he
thought that he was at home. In a moment, however, he remembered where
he was, and waited in the darkness for a repetition of the sound that
had awakened him. Soon it came again, and Balser in his drowsiness
fancied that Tom had changed his place and was lying beside him, though
never in all his life had he heard such sounds proceed from Limpy’s
nose. So he reached out his hand, and at once was undeceived, for he
touched the bear, and at last Balser was awake. The boy’s hair seemed to
stand erect upon his head, and his blood grew cold in his veins, as he
realized the terrible situation. All was darkness. The guns, hatchets,
and knives were upon the opposite side of the tree, and to reach them or
to reach the doorway Balser would have to climb over the bear. Cold as
the night was, perspiration sprang from every pore of his skin, and
terror took possession of him such as he had never before known. It
seemed a long time that he lay there, but it could not have been more
than a few seconds until the bear gave forth another snort, and Tom
raised up from his side of the bed, and said: “Balser, for goodness’
sake stop snoring. The noise you make would bring a dead man to life.”
Tom’s voice aroused the bear, and it immediately rose upon its haunches
with a deep growl that seemed to shake the tree. Then Jim awakened and
began to scream. At the same instant Tige and Prince entered the tree,
and a fight at once ensued between the bear and dogs. The bear was as
badly frightened as the boys, and when it and the dogs ran about the
room the boys were thrown to the ground and trampled upon.
The beast, in his desperate effort to escape, ran into the fireplace and
scattered the coals and ashes. As he could not escape through the
fireplace, he backed into the room, and again made the rounds of the
tree with the dogs at his heels. Again the boys were knocked about as if
they were ninepins. They made an effort to reach the door, but all I
have told you about took place so quickly, and the darkness was so
intense, that they failed to escape. Meantime the fight between the dogs
and the bear went on furiously, and the barking, yelping, growling, and
snarling made a noise that was deafening. Balser lifted Jim to his arms
and tried to save him from injury, but his efforts were of small avail,
for with each plunge of the bear the boys were thrown to the ground or
dashed against the tree, until it seemed that there was not a spot upon
their bodies that was not bruised and scratched. At last, after a minute
or two of awful struggle and turmoil—a minute or two that seemed hours
to the boys—the bear made his exit through the door followed closely by
Tige and Prince, who clung to him with a persistency not to be shaken
off.
You may be sure that the boys lost no time in making their exit also.
Their first thoughts, of course, were of each other, and when Balser
learned that Jim and Tom had received no serious injury, he quickly
turned his head in the direction whence the bear and dogs had gone, and
saw them at a point in the bend of the creek not fifty yards away. The
bear had come to bay, and the dogs were in front of him, at a safe
distance, barking furiously. Then Balser’s courage returned, and he
hastily went into the tree, brought out his carbine, and hurried toward
the scene of conflict. The moon was at its full, and the snow upon the
trees and upon the ground helped to make the night almost as light as
day. The bear was sitting erect upon his haunches, hurling defiant
growls at the dogs, and when Balser approached him, the brute presented
his breast as a fair mark. Tom also fetched his gun and followed closely
at Balser’s heels. The attention of the bear was so occupied with the
dogs that he gave no heed to the boys, and they easily approached him to
within a distance of five or six yards. Tom and Balser stood for a
moment or two with their guns ready to fire, and Balser said: “Tom, you
shoot first. I’ll watch carefully, and hold my fire until the bear makes
a rush, should you fail to kill him.”
Much to Balser’s surprise, Tom quickly and fearlessly took three or four
steps toward the bear, and when he lifted his father’s long gun to fire,
the end of it was within three yards of the bear’s breast.
[Illustration: “BALSER HESITATED TO FIRE, FEARING THAT HE MIGHT KILL TOM
OR ONE OF THE DOGS.”]
Balser held his ground, much frightened at Tom’s reckless bravery, but
did not dare to speak. When Tom fired, the bear gave forth a fearful
growl, and sprang like a wildcat right upon the boy. Tom fell to the
ground upon his back, and the bear stood over him. The dogs quickly made
an attack, and Balser hesitated to fire, fearing that he might kill Tom
or one of the dogs. Then came Jim, who rushed past Balser toward Tom and
the bear, and if Jim’s courage had ever before been doubted, all such
doubts were upon that night removed forever. The little fellow carried
in his hand Tom’s hatchet, and without fear or hesitancy he ran to the
bear and began to strike him with all his little might. Meantime poor,
prostrate Tom was crying piteously for help, and, now that Jim was added
to the group, it seemed impossible for Balser to fire at the bear. But
no time was to be lost. If Balser did not shoot, Tom certainly would be
killed in less than ten seconds. So, without stopping to take thought,
and upon the impulse of one of those rare intuitions under the influence
of which persons move so accurately, Balser lifted his gun to his
shoulder. He could see the bear’s head plainly as it swayed from side to
side, just over Tom’s throat, and it seemed that he could not miss his
aim. Almost without looking, he pulled the trigger. He felt the rebound
of the gun and heard the report breaking the heavy silence of the night.
Then he dropped the gun upon the snow and covered his face with his
hands, fearing to see the result of his shot. He stood for a moment
trembling. The dogs had stopped barking; the bear had stopped growling;
Jim had ceased to cry out; Tom had ceased his call for help, and the
deep silence rested upon Balser’s heart like a load of lead. He could
not take his hands from his face. After a moment he felt Jim’s little
hand upon his arm, and Tom said, as he drew himself from beneath the
bear, “Balser, there’s no man or boy living but you that could have made
that shot in the moonlight.”
Then Balser knew that he had killed the bear, and he sank upon the snow
and wept as if his heart would break.
Notwithstanding the intense cold, the excitement of battle had made the
boys unconscious of it, and Tom and Jim stood by Balser’s side as he sat
upon the snow, and they did not feel the sting of the night.
Poor little Jim, who was so given to grumbling, much to the surprise of
his companions fell upon his knees, and said, “Don’t cry, Balser, don’t
cry,” although the tears were falling over the little fellow’s own
cheeks. “Don’t cry any more, Balser, the bear is dead all over. I heard
the bullet whiz past my ears, and I heard it strike the bear’s head just
as plain as you can hear that owl hoot; and then I knew that you had
saved Tom and me, because nobody can shoot as well as you can.”
The little fellow’s tenderness and his pride in Balser seemed all the
sweeter, because it sprang from his childish gruffness.
Tom and Jim helped Balser to his feet, and they went over to the spot
where the bear was lying stone dead with Balser’s bullet in his brain.
The dogs were sniffing at the dead bear, and the monster brute lay upon
the snow in the moonlight, and looked like a huge incarnate fiend.
After examining him for a moment the boys slowly walked back to the
tree. When they had entered they raked the coals together, put on an
armful of wood, called in the dogs to share their comfort, hung up the
deerskin at the door, drew the bearskins in front of the fire, and sat
down to talk and think, since there was no sleep left in their eyes for
the rest of that night.
After a long silence Jim said, “I told you he’d come back.”
“But he didn’t eat us,” replied Tom, determined that Jim should not be
right in everything.
“He’d have eaten you, Limpy Fox, if Balser hadn’t been the best shot in
the world.”
“That’s what he would,” answered Tom, half inclined to cry.
“Nonsense,” said Balser, “anybody could have done it.”
“Well, I reckon not” said Jim. “Me and Tom and the dogs and the bear was
as thick as six in a bed; and honest, Balser, I think you had to shoot
around a curve to miss us all but the bear.”
After a few minutes Jim said: “Golly! wasn’t that an awful fight we had
in here before the bear got out?”
“Yes, it was,” returned Balser, seriously.
“Well, I rather think it was,” continued Jim. “Honestly, fellows, I ran
around this here room so fast for a while, that—that I could see my own
back most of the time.”
Balser and Tom laughed, and Tom said: “Jim, if you keep on improving,
you’ll be a bigger liar than that fellow in the Bible before you’re half
his age.”
Then the boys lapsed into silence, and the dogs lay stretched before the
fire till the welcome sun began to climb the hill of the sky and spread
his blessed tints of gray and blue and pink and red, followed by the
glorious flood of day.
After breakfast the boys skinned the bear and cut his carcass into small
pieces—that is, such portions of it as they cared to keep. They hung the
bearskin and meat upon the branches of their castle beyond the reach of
wolves and foxes, and they gave to Tige and Prince each a piece of meat
that made their sides stand out with fulness.
The saving of the bear meat and skin consumed most of the morning, and
at noon the boys took a loin steak from the bear and broiled it upon the
coals for dinner. After dinner they began the real work of the
expedition by preparing to set the traps.
When all was ready they started up the creek, each boy carrying a load
of traps over his shoulder. At a distance of a little more than half a
mile from the castle they found a beaver dam stretching across the
creek, and at the water’s edge near each end of the dam they saw
numberless tracks made by the little animals whose precious pelts they
were so anxious to obtain.
I should like to tell you of the marvellous home of that wonderful
little animal the beaver, and of his curious habits and instincts; how
he chops wood and digs into the ground and plasters his home, under the
water, with mud, using his tail for shovel and trowel. But all that you
may learn from any book on natural history, and I assure you it will be
found interesting reading.
The boys placed five or six traps upon the beaver paths on each side of
the creek, and then continued their journey up stream until they found a
little opening in the ice down to which, from the bank above, ran a
well-beaten path, telling plainly of the many kinds of animals that had
been going there to drink. There they set a few traps and baited them
with small pieces of bear meat, and then they returned home, intending
to visit the traps next morning at an early hour, and hoping to reap a
rich harvest of pelts.
When the boys reached home it lacked little more than an hour of sunset,
but the young fellows had recovered from the excitement of the night
before, which had somewhat destroyed their appetites for breakfast and
dinner, and by the time they had returned from setting their traps those
same appetites were asserting themselves with a vigour that showed
plainly enough a fixed determination to make up for lost time.
“How would a wild turkey or a venison steak taste for supper?” asked
Balser.
Jim simply looked up at him with a greedy, hungry expression, and
exclaimed the one word—“Taste?”
“Well, I’ll go down the creek a little way and see what I can find. You
fellows stay here and build a fire, so that we can have a fine bed of
coals when I return.”
Balser shouldered his gun and went down the creek to find his supper. He
did not take the dogs, for he hoped to kill a wild turkey, and dogs are
apt to bark in the pursuit of squirrels and rabbits, thereby frightening
the turkey, which is a shy and wary bird.
[Illustration]
When the boy had travelled quite a long distance down stream, he began
to fear that, after all, he should be compelled to content himself with
a rabbit or two for supper. So he turned homeward and scanned the woods
carefully for the humble game, that he might not go home entirely
empty-handed.
Upon his journey down the creek rabbits had sprung up on every side of
him, but now that he wanted a pair for supper they all had mysteriously
disappeared, and he feared that he and the boys and the dogs would be
compelled to content themselves with bear meat.
[Illustration: “ESPIED A DOE AND A FAWN, STANDING UPON THE OPPOSITE SIDE
OF THE CREEK.”]
When the boy was within a few hundred yards of home, and had almost
despaired of obtaining even a rabbit, he espied a doe and a fawn,
standing upon the opposite side of the creek at a distance of sixty or
seventy yards, watching him intently with their great brown eyes, so
full of fatal curiosity. Balser imitated the cry of the fawn, and held
the attention of the doe until he was enabled to lessen the distance by
fifteen or twenty yards. Then he shot the fawn, knowing that if he did
so, its mother, the doe, would run for a short distance and would return
to the fawn. In the meantime Balser would load his gun and would kill
the doe when she returned. And so it happened that the doe and the fawn
each fell a victim to our hunter’s skill. Balser threw the fawn over his
shoulder and carried it to the castle; then the boys took one of the
sleds and fetched home the doe.
They hung the doe high upon the branches of the sycamore, and cut the
fawn into small pieces, which they put upon the ice of the creek and
covered with snow, that the meat might quickly cool. The bed of coals
was ready, and the boys were ready too, you may be sure.
Soon the fawn meat cooled, and soon each boy was devouring a savoury
piece that had been broiled upon the coals.
After supper the boys again built a fine fire, and sat before it talking
of the events of the day, and wondering how many beavers, foxes, coons,
and muskrats they would find in their traps next morning.
As the fire died down drowsiness stole over our trappers, who were in
the habit of going to bed soon after sunset, and they again crept in
between the bearskins with Jim in the middle. They, however, took the
precaution to keep Tige and Prince in the same room with them, and the
boys slept that night without fear of an intrusion such as had disturbed
them the night before.
Next morning, bright and early, the boys hurried up the creek to examine
their traps, and greatly to their joy found five beavers and several
minks, coons, and muskrats safely captured. Near one of the traps was
the foot of a fox, which its possessor had bitten off in the night when
he learned that he could not free it from the cruel steel.
The boys killed the animals they had caught by striking them on the head
with a heavy club, which method of inflicting death did not damage the
pelts as a sharp instrument or bullet would have done. After resetting
the traps, our hunters placed the game upon the sled and hurried home to
their castle, where the pelts were carefully removed, stretched upon
forked sticks, and hung up to dry.
Our heroes remained in camp for ten or twelve days, and each morning
brought them a fine supply of fur. They met with no other adventure
worthy to be related, and one day was like another. They awakened each
morning with the sun, and ate their breakfast of broiled venison, fish,
or quail, with now and then a rabbit. Upon one occasion they had the
breast of a wild turkey. They sought the traps, took the game, prepared
the pelts, ate their dinners and suppers of broiled meats and baked
sweet potatoes, and slumbered cozily beneath their warm bearskins till
morning.
One day Balser noticed that the snow was melting and was falling from
the trees. He and his companions had taken enough pelts to make a heavy
load upon each of the sleds. They feared that the weather might suddenly
grow warm and that the snow might disappear. So they leisurely packed
the pelts and their belongings, and next morning started for home on
Blue River, the richest, happiest boys in the settlement.
They were glad to go home, but it was with a touch of sadness, when they
passed around the bend in the creek, that they said “Good-by” to their
“Castle on Brandywine.”
[Illustration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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By CHARLES MAJOR
_Author of “When Knighthood Was in Flower,” etc._
With eight full-page illustrations by HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Changed “CHAPTER IX. A CASTLE ON THE BRANDYWINE” to “CHAPTER X. A
CASTLE ON THE BRANDYWINE” on p. 238.
2. Silently corrected typographical errors.
3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Bears of Blue River, by Charles Major