BLACK FORESTS AND GRAY SWAMPS
The house in the clearing was dark and quiet as the grave when
Catherine and Tom reached it. Blackie did not bark at them, for he
was with them, shivering cheerfully at Tom’s heels from the
combination of loyal enthusiasm and chilliness. Catherine entered
the house, as silent as a shadow of the night. Tom went to one of
the barns and unearthed his wool-lined leather coat and with it on
replaced the patched mackinaw of Gaspard’s which he had been
wearing. He returned to the house just as Catherine reappeared with
twenty-five of her grandfather’s cartridges, half a dozen cakes of
his tobacco and a small bag of flour.
Tom received these things from her hands with mumbled words of
thanks. He behaved so awkwardly that he dropped the tobacco and had
to get down on his hands and knees to recover it.
“Snowshoes and moccasins,” she whispered. “I almost forgot them; and
I’m sure it will snow before morning.”
Again she slipped into the sleeping house; and again she returned,
this time with a pair of cowhide moccasins, an assortment of woolen
socks and two pairs of snowshoes. They retired to a safe distance
from the house and there made everything into a pack of sorts. She
helped him lift the pack to his shoulders and adjust it.
“Now you must go, you must hurry,” she said.
He extended his mittened hands and rested them lightly on her
shoulders.
“I’ll go—and I’ll hurry, of course,” he replied, in husky and
hurried tones. “But if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t move an inch—I’d
let them catch me and court-martial me and break me. Hunted by those
fellows! A fugitive! But they’ll forget it some day—and that’s the
day I am praying for—the day when I can tell you what I think of
you, Cathie MacKim!”
Next moment she was gone from beneath his extended hands—gone, and
vanished in the gloom toward the blacker gloom of the silent house.
He stood motionless for fully a minute, scarcely breathing, with his
hands still extended. Then his arms sank slowly to his sides and his
breath escaped in a gasping sigh of suggestive astonishment and even
greater emotion. He hitched his pack higher, turned abruptly and
headed northward through the cold and dark. But cold as it was and
dark as it was he felt as warm as toast and stepped out as assuredly
as if the sun were shining.
“By thunder, she kissed me!” he whispered. “Quick as winking—but
that is what it was! They can’t catch me now, the poor Rubes—not in
fifty years!”
He would probably have continued in this high strain for several
minutes had he not strode squarely into the raking barrier of a
brush-fence. After that, he walked with more circumspection; but in
spite of a scratched face and a barked skin he felt at the top of
his form.
The snow which Catherine had predicted began to circle down just as
Tom reached his camp on Pappoose Lake. He placed his pack in the
lean-to, fed the fire, and then went out and brought in his three
traps. One had a mink. Returning to the camp he made all his
possessions—including the tarpaulin and the dead mink—into two
formidable packs. He shouldered one of these and started for Racquet
Pond.
It was close upon seven o’clock in the morning, and snow was still
falling, when Tom reached the camp on Racquet Pond. He found Mick
Otter up and breakfasting by the light of the fire in the middle of
his floor. He explained the situation without loss of time, in the
fewest possible words.
“Got you,” said the old Maliseet, gulping the last of his mug of tea
as he rose to his feet. “I go. You eat breakfas’, then fetch in two
trap by brook, then pack. Git other five trap sometime maybe. Don’t
matter now.”
Tom breakfasted and lit his pipe. He brought in the two nearest
traps, which were empty. The snow continued to circle down through
the windless air. The morning came on grayly, without a gleam of
sunshine. He made another pack of everything that he could find
about the camp—pelts dried and fresh, provisions and blankets and
the two traps—and wondered what was to be done with all this
luggage.
It was ten o’clock when Mick Otter appeared, staggering. He dropped
his load, shook and beat the clinging snow from his head and
shoulders and sat down with a grunt in the doorway of the shack.
“You make darn bad pack,” he said.
He pulled the mitten from his right hand, produced a short clay pipe
from somewhere about his person and passed it over his shoulder,
without turning his head.
“You fill a pipe,” he said. “You got dry ’baccy, what?”
He was a generous man, but he always made a point of cadging
tobacco.
Tom, who stood behind him, took the pipe, filled it and returned it,
then lit a splinter of wood at the fire and held the flame to the
bowl. Mick puffed strongly.
“That a’ right,” he said. “Chuck fire out now. Smoke smell long
ways.”
Tom obeyed, tossing the fire out into the new snow brand by brand.
“Good,” said Mick. “This snow darn good too, you bet. Don’t let up
one-day, maybe. We make toboggan now an’ git out, what.”
“Whatever you say,” replied Tom. “You are in command, so long as we
stay on the ground. But what shall we make the toboggan of, and how
long will the job take us? We are supposed to be in a hurry, I
believe.”
Mick got to his feet, ax in hand, and walked to a big spruce that
towered nearby, all of it but the brown base and lower branches lost
to view in the twirling white veils of snow. He hoisted himself to
the lowest branch and lopped it off. Thus he cut six tough, wide
branches. With these, and strips cut from a blanket, he quickly
fashioned what he was pleased to call a toboggan. Upon it he laid
all the packs and fastened them down with the tarpaulin. He rigged
strong traces of blanket to the forward end of the thing.
“Now we pull him,” he said. “Guess he slide pretty good; an’ the
snow fill up his track darn quick.”
They rounded the western end of the pond, dragging their possessions
at their heels. They headed north then, pulling like horses, each
with a rope of blanket over a shoulder and gripped in both hands.
The toboggan, so called, stuck frequently and had to be yanked this
way and that and lifted by the stern. It was hard work and slow
progress—but they kept at it without rest until three o’clock in the
afternoon; and the snow continued to fall thickly and windlessly all
that time.
They pulled into a close thicket of young spruces, made a small fire
and boiled snow for tea. After eating a few slices of bread and
drinking a kettleful of tea, they lit their pipes and continued
their journey. The visionless day darkened to black night; and still
they toiled forward. The light, new snow took them to the knees. It
was rough going all the way, with never more than a few yards of
level ground at a time—over blow-downs and hidden hummocks of moss
and hidden rocks, and through tangles of every variety of
underbrush. Mick Otter missed his footing and fell twice and Tom did
the same thing four times. Twice one of the packs worked loose and
fell off; and at last the sledge itself fell apart from sheer wear
and tear.
[Illustration: “IT WAS HARD WORK AND SLOW PROGRESS.”]
“Guess we go far ’nough to-night,” said the old Maliseet.
They cleared themselves a space in the heart of a clump of cedars
and rigged the tarpaulin for a roof. As the snow was still falling
thickly they permitted themselves a good fire. They took to their
blankets and fell asleep before the bowls of their after-dinner
pipes were cold.
When the fugitives awoke just before the first pale shimmer of dawn
the snow had ceased to fall—but it lay all around them almost
hip-deep and clung to the bowed tops and branches of the forest in
great masses. They fried bacon and boiled the kettle at a mere pinch
of fire. They constructed a new and stronger drag for their baggage,
changed their boots for moccasins, donned their snowshoes and pulled
out. The east showed silver, then red, then gold through the
snow-burdened towers of the forest. Presently the sun lifted above
the world’s edge, and with it arose a vigorous wind. Before that
wind the light snow went up in clouds, even in the sheltered woods;
and it fell from the shaken trees in showers and masses.
“Good,” said Mick Otter. “Snow hide our track yesterday, wind hide
him to-day.”
“We seem to be playing in luck,” replied Tom; and then, “Are you
heading for anywhere in particular?” he asked.
“Git to one dam good camp by sundown, maybe,” answered Mick. “Have
buckwheat flapjacks an’ molas’ for supper, maybe.”
“A camp!” exclaimed Tom. “Do you mean a lumber-camp? That would be a
crazy thing to do!”
“Nope, don’t mean lumber-camp. Camp I make long time back. Live in
him three-four week las’ winter.”
An hour later, while crossing a corner of open barren, they were
almost smothered by the drifting snow. And the cold was piercing.
Also, the lightness of the snow made the “going” exceedingly
difficult—but this condition improved as the wind drove it into
white headlands and packed it tight.
Before noon, the backs of Tom’s legs were attacked by snowshoer’s
cramp. It was exactly noon when he relinquished the painful struggle
and sat down with a yelp of pain. Mick Otter saw what the trouble
was at a glance. He made a fire and dragged Tom close to it. Then he
produced a pot of bear’s grease from the luggage, melted a quantity
of it and rubbed it vigorously into the cramped muscles of Tom’s
legs. Tom held his nose.
“If the detective gets a whiff of that he will track us around the
world,” he said, at the conclusion of the operation.
“We don’t go ’round the world, so that a’ right,” replied the
Maliseet.
The bear’s grease proved to be as potent as it smelt; and by the
time dinner had been cooked and eaten, Tom’s muscles were free from
pain and comparatively limber. But it was not until a full hour
after sunset that Mick Otter halted and said they had arrived. He
let fall his trace and vanished in a wall of spruces. Tom backed up
and reclined on the loaded drag; and presently he saw the glow of
firelight through the heavy branches and crowded stems of the
thicket.
“Come in,” called Mick. “Plenty time unload after supper.”
The camp was one to be proud of. It was at least thirty feet long.
In width it dwindled from about fifteen feet to as many inches, and
its height permitted Tom to stand upright. Its front wall was built
of logs and a part of the roof of poles and brush. The sides and the
greater part of the roof were of rock and earth. It pierced the
rugged hill at a gentle slant. It had been a brush-filled little
gully backed by a little cave inhabited by a large bear, when Mick
Otter first found it, many years ago.
When Tom scrambled through the small doorway, his snowshoes still on
his feet, he found the place full of smoke from the newly lighted
fire. The fire burned in a chimney of mud-plastered stones that went
crookedly upward against one rocky wall and vanished through the
roof of poles. Tom remarked on Mick’s evident appetite for smoke,
remembering the camp on Racquet Pond.
“A’ right pretty soon, you bet,” said Mick. “Coons make nest in the
chimley, maybe, or maybe snow stuff him up. One darn good chimley,
anyhow. He suck up smoke fine most times.”
Snow was the trouble; and at that moment a bushel of it slid down
and extinguished the fire, leaving the owner and his guest in
absolute darkness.
“That a’ right,” said Mick. “Now he suck up smoke fine.”
He quickly cleared the snow and wet faggots from the hearth and laid
and touched a match to dry bark and dry wood. He was right—the smoke
went straight up the chimney in the most knowing manner. He was
pleased.
“You don’t find no better chimley nor him in Fredericton nor Noo
York nor Muntree-hall,” he said.
Then, working by the increasing illumination from the hearth, he
raised a square of poles from the floor—a thing that looked more
like a miniature raft than a door—and propped it across the low
entrance of the cave.
“He have two good hinges made of ol’ boot las’ winter, but some darn
b’ar come along an’ bust him in, I guess,” he explained.
“Don’t apologize,” said Tom, kicking off his snowshoes and throwing
aside his fur cap and leather coat. “If I had been the bear I would
have stayed right here till spring, once I had forced the door.”
He sat down on a heap of dry brush close to the fire. Mick went to
the far end of the cave, to investigate the condition of the stores
which he had left there the winter before.
“That b’ar stop plenty long enough!” he exclaimed. “He eat all the
prune an’ all the backum, darn his long snout!”
“Is that so!” cried Tom, now keenly interested. “And what about the
molasses?”
“He don’t git that molas’, no,” replied Mick. “He don’t have no
corkscrew ’long with him that trip, I guess.”
“And the buckwheat meal? How about that?”
“Buckwheat a’ right, too.”
“I’ll fetch the pan and the kettle and the baking powder.”
The supper was a success. The flapjacks, fried in a pan greased with
a rind of bacon and flooded with molasses at the very moment of
consumption, were delicious. Even the two that missed the pan in the
act of turning and flapped into the fire lost nothing in flavor.
After supper they brought in the outfit and spread their blankets to
warm. There was enough dry fuel inside to last for several days.
Outside, the wind continued to blow and the snow to drift before it.
In the morning they found the hingeless door banked high with snow;
and upon pushing their way out they found the trail of their
approach drifted full up to the edge of the dense wood which
screened the front of their retreat. A land of small, heavily wooded
hills lay around them. The sky was clear, a thin wind was still
blowing and the air was bitterly cold. They made their way over the
roof of their dwelling and up the rough slope behind, plunging and
squirming through tangles of brush and snow hip-deep; and, upon
reaching the crown of the hill, Tom climbed into the spire of a tall
spruce. From that high perch he could look abroad for miles in every
direction. He looked back over the country through which they had
made the laborious journey, and saw nothing but black forests and
gray swamps; with here and there the pale trunks of birch trees, and
here and there a ridge of high gray maples and beeches, and patches
and strips of gleaming snow everywhere. Nothing moved but the wind,
and thin, sudden clouds of snow that puffed up and ran and sank
before it. No least haze of smoke, no sign of human habitation or
trafficking, tinged the clear air above the forests or marred the
white of the open spaces. He turned his head and searched the bright
horizon all around the world and every square yard of the landscape
within his range of vision. There was no smoke or ghost of smoke
anywhere, nor any break in the timber that looked as if it had been
cut by the hand of man, nor any sign of movement on the patches and
lanes of snow. He descended and reported to Mick Otter.
“That a’ right,” said Mick. “Guess we stop here an’ see what happen,
hey? Don’t make no tracks in front an’ lay low, what?”
“Sounds good to me—but what about our smoke?” asked Tom.
Mick pointed down the southern slope of the hill, where the
underbrush between the boles of the wide-limbed spruces and firs
grew thick and interlaced.
“Darn little smoke git through that,” he said. “Burn dry hard-wood
all day, anyhow—an’ mighty little of him.”
“It seems to me that we might stay here until Tone and the detective
chuck it. If we keep a sharp look-out they won’t catch us in
daylight; and they’ll never find that cave at night. It suits me. I
don’t want to go any farther away than I have to.”
“Maybe—but we stop here only two-three day, to rest up an’ look out.
Go north an’ west then, to place I know where we buy grub—an’ find
little camp of mine pretty near the hull way. Maybe they don’t know
nothin’ ’bout you over to Timbertown—so we trap an’ make some money,
what?”
“Buy grub? We have enough to last us weeks—and I haven’t a dollar.”
The Maliseet smiled and tapped his chest with a mittened finger.
“Got plenty dollar an’ plenty fur, me, Mick Otter,” he said.
They worked all that day and the next at the construction of a real
toboggan, leaving their work only to eat, and to climb into the top
of their look-out tree once in every couple of hours of daylight.
They failed to discover any sign of pursuit.
This toboggan was made of thin strips of seasoned ash which Mick had
prepared for this very purpose two years ago. These were held in
place, edge to edge, by numerous cross-pieces of the same tough
wood; and as they lacked both nails and screws they had to tie the
cross-pieces down with thongs of leather. They were without a
gimlet; they hadn’t even a small bit of wire to heat and burn holes
with; so the numerous holes through which the thongs of leather were
passed had to be bored and cut with knives—Mick Otter’s sheath-knife
and Tom’s pen-knife. The strips of ash of which the floor of the
toboggan was formed were an inch thick. They bored and they gouged.
They raised blisters in unexpected places on their hard fingers. Tom
broke the tips off both blades of his knife. But they stuck to it
and made a good job of it.
They buried half of their wheat flour and a little of their bacon in
the cave, along with the half-full jug of molasses and the tin can
of buckwheat meal, and banked the low door with logs and brush. Then
they dragged their new toboggan up and over the hill and down its
northern slope. The newly-risen sun showed a hazy face above the
black hills, and the light wind that fanned along out of the east
had no slash or sting in it.
“That snow work for us agin, maybe,” said Mick Otter.