Inspiration point was the first camp at which the lads had enjoyed the
magnificent panoramic view of the great river and its valley and where
they had tasted the joy of roaming about freely through upland forests
and fields.
Some camps one finds so attractive that it is hard to break away, and
after one has at last rolled up tents and blankets, memory involuntarily
returns to the scene.
The lads enjoyed the camp at Inspiration Point so much that they begged
Mr. Barker to stay there at least another night.
"I don't know, boys," the old man objected mildly. "It may not be so
pleasant to-night. I think we are going to have rain."
"Where can the rain come from?" the boys questioned. "There isn't a
cloud in the sky."
"Not yet," the old trapper admitted, "but clouds will come soon enough.
I sort of feel and smell rain in the air."
The boys laughed, "Ah, you're just fooling us," they insisted. "You
can't smell rain like you smell flowers or skunks."
They ran over to Tatanka who, leaning against an old oak, was gazing
down the valley where a large, high, rocky island arose like a
flat-topped mountain.
"I climbed to an eagle's nest on that mountain when I was a boy," he
told the lads. "The eagle was the totem of our village. I brought down a
big young eagle and the other boys and I caught fish for him and he grew
very tame. When he grew older and could fly well he flew away, but he
often came back and sat on our tepee poles."
"Tatanka," the boys questioned, "is it going to rain to-night? Mr.
Barker says he can feel and smell rain. Do you believe he can smell
rain?"
Tatanka smiled and gazed into the hazy distance. "Yes, I think it will
rain," he answered, "after a while."
"Can you smell it?" the lads asked eagerly.
"May be I can smell it, may be I can feel it. White trappers and Indians
can smell many things other people can't smell."
"We can smell deer and buffalo and porcupines. I can smell the river
now."
"Yes, I think it will rain to-night. And may be there will be thunder
and lightning."
The boys ran back to the trapper.
"Mr. Barker," they argued, "our lean-to will shed the rain if we pile on
some oak brush with the leaves still on it."
"That lean-to," the old man laughed, "will leak like a sieve. In five
minutes the wind will shake your ears full of big cold drops, and you
wouldn't sleep a wink all night.
"You fellows can stay here overnight, but I reckon Tatanka and I will go
down to the boat and set up our tent. I don't care to sit up all night
in the rain. I have done that often enough."
But after a little more coaxing, the old man consented to stay another
night on the point.
"Now I tell you what you can do," he suggested to his young friends.
"You gather a lot of bark, big pieces, of oak or basswood, anything you
can find, and we'll put a roof on our shed."
"But the bark doesn't peel yet," Tim objected.
"No, no, I don't mean green bark. Get big pieces of bark from the old
dead trees. That will do well enough for one night."
The boys soon had a stock of dead bark piled up.
"Looks as if you were going to start a tannery," remarked the trapper.
"Now go and find a lot of strings so we can tie it on."
"Where can we find strings!" the boys wanted to know.
"You go and ask Tatanka. He can find them."
Tatanka was not troubled about finding strings. Some he made by shaving
the bark off young shoots of basswood. Others he found by twisting the
fiber of dead Indian hemp and wild nettle into strong cords.
"The woods are full of good ropes," he murmured, "but white men don't
know how to find them and make them. They can only buy them in the
stores."
The boys were going to tie the bark crosswise; but the trapper would not
have it that way.
"Tie them running up and down," he said. "Alternate them with rough side
up and smooth side up, so they overlap, making a lot of little troughs
running to the ground. Then tie them to three strong poles fastened
crosswise over the lean-to.
"There! It is a rough-looking shelter. Not nearly so neat as a Chippewa
bark-house, but it ought to shed the rain if the wind doesn't blow it
over and if the wind doesn't come from the wrong side.
"Now get some wood, boys. Tim, you gather a lot of dry sticks for our
cooking fire. Bill, you cut some green birches for the camp-fire.
Tatanka and I will cut some green oaks for back logs."
"Mr. Barker, why can't I gather dry branches for the camp-fire? There
are plenty of them lying around," Tim asked eagerly.
"You may, Tim," the old man replied good-naturedly, "but you will have
to sit up all night to feed the fire."
"Mr. Barker," Bill asked, "isn't oak just as good as birch for our
camp-fire. I have to carry the birch a long way."
"No, Bill. Oak is no good when you can get birch. Green oak alone burns
too slow. Dry oak is too hard to cut and burns too fast. Hickory and
tamarack crackle and throw sparks into your blanket, so you wake up with
your bed on fire.
"Birch is best for an all-night fire. It burns not too fast and not too
slow, and it never shoots sparks into your bed."
Tim soon had enough sticks and dead branches to last several days, so he
helped Bill to carry the billets of birch to the fireplace. They were
almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter.
"They will burn pretty slow, I fear," the trapper remarked, "because the
sap is in full flow and the wood feels soggy. Birch is most sappy at
this time of the year."
The night started well enough. It was warm and clear and the campers sat
around the fire after supper and saw the stars come out, a few bright
ones first and then the host of smaller ones and very small ones. From
their high camp the boys could see the larger stars reflected in the
river like faint streaks of trembling light. The river continued to rise
and the bottom began to appear like a series of long winding lakes
separated by long islands of dark forests. The lads gazed in wonder from
the river to the sky and from the sky to the river. The Great Dipper
stood out clearly.
"When does it rise and when does it set?" Tim asked.
"It is always there," Tatanka answered. "It never rises and never sets,
but the sun puts it out in the morning."
The boys looked questioningly at the trapper. "That is true," he
confirmed Tatanka's answer, "all the stars near the Polar Star never
rise and never set. You can see them in the evening as soon as it is
dark enough, and they shine till the rising sun makes them invisible.
They just go round and round the Polar Star."
Many faint chirping sounds were heard as the four campers sat near the
camp-fire. The green birch burnt very slowly so that Tim had to put some
of his dry sticks between the logs to keep a good steady fire. At all
other times green birch starts quite readily from a small fire of dry
sticks and then burns with an even glow. The ends sizzle with escaping
moisture but the wood does not crackle and does not throw off any
sparks.
The boys wanted Tatanka to tell them what the Indians knew and believed
about the stars and the moon, but the trapper urged them all to go to
bed.
"Tatanka," he said, "can tell you about the moon and stars some other
time. We must make an early start to-morrow. If we keep on loafing among
the hills, as we have been doing, we shall not get to Vicksburg all
summer.
"How far do you think it is to Vicksburg?" he asked the boys.
They did not know.
"I talked to Ryerson at the store," Barker continued. "He is an old
river man. He told me it was five hundred miles from Lake Pepin to St.
Louis and a thousand miles from St. Louis to Vicksburg. It will take us
two months to get there, if we average twenty-five miles a day."
"We can go faster than that, Mr. Barker," the boys protested; "we can
make fifty miles a day."
"You boys do big talking," the trapper laughed at them. "We want to rest
on Sundays. It is going to rain some days, and on some days the wind is
going to be strong against us. Then we shall sometimes make only short
trips in order to stop at good camping-places, and sometimes we shall
stop to fish."
All four were soon fast asleep.
About midnight the boys woke up. A glaring flash of lightning followed
by a loud crashing and echoing thunder made them sit up startled.
"There," Barker remarked with a friendly laugh, "what did Tatanka and I
tell you? Bill, crawl out and put some more sticks and green billets on
the fire or the rain will put it out."
Soon the rain came down pattering on the bark roof and the four campers
had to sit hunched up under their shed.
"How did you know, Mr. Barker," Tim asked, "that the rain would come
from the west?"
"I did not know it," the trapper acknowledged; "but I know from
experience that most of the showers in this region come from the west,
so I faced our shelter to the east."
The lads sat in awed silence as the lightning played back and forth
between the Minnesota and Wisconsin bluffs and lit up the river and the
woods as with great flashlights, and the thunder rolled and rumbled and
echoed from east to west and from the high island to the south.
The lean-to shed the water perfectly, for the trapper had seen to it
that the rough bark shingles overlapped well and that all pieces with
knot-holes were rejected.
When the violent lightning and thunder had passed eastward, the lads ran
out and took a shower-bath in the rain and it was not long before all
four were again sound asleep under their warm blankets in front of the
slowly burning fire.