“The sigh that lifts her breastie comes,
Like sad winds frae the sea,
Wi’ sic a dreary sough, as wad
Bring tears into yer e’e.”
When Claud Elwood reached home, on the eventful visit to the Magalloway
which resulted in the exchange of vows between him and Avis Gurley,
as intimated at the close of the last chapter, he at once suspected,
from the sad and troubled looks of his mother and the disturbed manner
of his father, that the secret of his late visits abroad, as well as
of the unexpected advent of the family visited, had, in some way,
become known to them in his absence. A feeling of mingled delicacy and
self-condemnation, however, prevented him from making any inquiries;
and, with a commonplace remark, which was received in silence, he
took a seat, and, with much inward trembling, awaited the expected
_denouement_. But it did not come so soon nor in so harsh terms as
he expected. There are occasions when we feel so deeply that we are
reluctant to begin the task of unburdening our minds; and, when we
do speak out, it is oftener in sorrow than in anger. It was so in
the present instance. Mr. Elwood had that day been abroad among the
settlers, and, for the first time, learned not only that Gaut Gurley
had moved with his family into the settlement, but that Claud was
courting his daughter, and a match already settled on between them. On
his return home, Elwood felt almost as much reluctance in making known
his discoveries to his wife as Claud had before him; for he well knew
how deeply they would disquiet her. But, soon concluding there would be
no wisdom in attempting concealment, he told her what he had heard.
As he had anticipated, the news fell like a sudden thunderclap on her
heart. She had experienced, indeed, many strange misgivings respecting
her son’s late mysterious absences; but she was not prepared for such
a double portion of ill-omened news as she deemed this to be, and
it struck her mute with dismay, for it at once brought a cloud over
the future, which to her eye was dark with portents. Elwood himself
was also obviously considerably disquieted by the news, showing no
little uneasiness and excitement,--an excitement, perhaps, resembling
that which is said to be manifested by a bird in the presence of the
devouring reptile. He doubtless would gladly have been relieved from
any further connection with Gaut. He doubtless would gladly have
avoided even the slightest renewal of their former acquaintance. But,
for reasons which he had never disclosed, he felt confident he should
not long be suffered to enjoy any such exemption. And feeling, for the
same reasons, how weak he should be in the hands of that man, he was
troubled, far more troubled than he would have been willing to own, at
the discoveries of the day, even if that part of it relating to the
intimacy of his son and Gaut’s daughter should prove, as he believed, a
mere conjecture.
It was at this juncture, and before a word of comment had been offered
either by Mrs. Elwood or her husband on the news he had related, that
Claud arrived and entered the room.
“Well, God’s will be done!” sadly uttered Mrs. Elwood, at length
breaking the embarrassing silence, but without raising her eyes from
her work, which lay neglected in her lap.
“What does mother mean?” doubtfully asked Claud, turning to his father.
“I have been telling her some unexpected news, which greatly disturbs
her mind,--more than is necessary, perhaps,” replied the other, with
poorly assumed indifference.
“What news?” rejoined the son, having made up his mind that, if
his own secret was involved, as he supposed, the long dreaded
_eclaircissement_ might as well come now as ever.
“Why, that Gaut Gurley has moved with his family into the settlement.
And that is not all; but the rest of it, which relates to a
lately-formed intimacy between you and Gaut’s daughter, I presume is
mere guess-work.”
Mrs. Elwood turned a searching glance to the face of her son, and
waited to hear his reply to the last remarks, but he was silent;
and the last gleam of hope, which had for the moment lighted up
the mother’s countenance, faded like a moon-beam on the edge of an
eclipsing cloud; and, after a long pause and silence which no one
interrupted, she slowly and sadly said:
“When I consented to leave the comforts and social blessings to which
I had been accustomed, and come into this lone wilderness, with its
well-known hardships and privations, my great and indeed only motive
was, to see my family placed beyond the temptations of the city, and
especially beyond the fatal and to me always mysterious, influence of
that wicked and dangerous man, Gaut Gurley. And with this object I
came cheerfully, gladly. And when I reached this place, fondly hoping
and believing we had escaped that man, and were forever secure from
his wiles, I became happy,--happier than since I left my native hills
in New-Hampshire. It soon became to _me_, lone and dreary as it might
appear to others,--it soon became to _me_, in my fancied security from
the evils we had fled, a second Paradise. But to me it is a Paradise
no longer; the Serpent has found his way into our Eden; and, not
content with having beguiled and ruined one, must now have the other so
entangled in the toils that both will be kept in his power.”
“You are going a great ways to borrow trouble, it appears to me,
Alice,” remarked Elwood, after a pause.
“It certainly seems so to me, also, mother,” said Claud. “You cannot
know but Gurley comes here with as honest purposes as father. But,
were it otherwise, the daughter should not be held responsible for the
faults of the father, nor, without good reason, be accused of favoring
any sinister designs he may entertain.”
“Claud takes a just view of the case, on both points, I presume,”
rejoined Mr. Elwood. “As to Gurley, I know not how, or why, he came
here; nor do I wish or expect to have any thing to do with him. And as
to Claud, I trust he knows enough to take care of himself.”
“You have both evaded the spirit of my remarks,” responded Mrs. Elwood.
“When I speak of Gaut Gurley’s motives and designs, you must know
I judge from his past conduct. Have either of you as safe grounds
of judging him? And when I allude to his daughter, I do so with no
thought of holding her amenable for the faults of her father, or even
of assuming the ground that she has inherited any of his objectionable
traits of character. I intend nothing of the kind, for I know nothing
of her. But I do say, that, whenever she marries, she becomes the
connecting link between her husband and her father, the chain extending
both ways, so as to bind their respective families together, and
give one the power and means of evil which could in no other way be
obtained. In view of all these circumstances, then, I feel that a
calamity is in store for us. God grant that my fears and forebodings
may prove groundless.”
The husband and son were saved the difficult and embarrassing task of
replying, by the arrival of Phillips, who, in his free and easy manner,
entered and took a seat with the family.
“I came, gentlefolks,” said the hunter, after a few commonplace remarks
had been exchanged,--“I came to see if you know what a ‘bee’ means?”
“A bee? what, honey-bees?” asked Mr. Elwood, in surprise at the oddness
of the question.
“No, not a honey-bee, exactly, or a humble-bee, but a sort of
work-meeting of men or women, to help a neighbor to husk his corn,
for instance, build him a log house, or do off some other job for him
in a day, which alone would take him perhaps weeks. These turn-outs
we new settlers call ‘bees.’ Nothing is more common than for a man to
get up a bee to knock off at once a pressing job he wants done. And,
when a new-comer appears to be delicate about moving in the matter,
the neighbors sometimes volunteer, and get up a bee for him, among
themselves.”
“I may have heard of the custom; but why do you say you came to ask me
if I know any thing about it?”
“Well, I kinder thought I would. You have a pretty stiff-looking burnt
piece here to be logged off soon, have you not?”
“Why, yes.”
“And it would be a hard and heavy month’s job for you and the young man
to do it, would it not?”
“The best part of a month, perhaps; but I was intending to go at it
in season, that we might get it all cleared and sown by the middle of
September; which must be done, if I join you and the rest of the usual
company in the fall trapping and hunting expedition.”
“Of course you will join us. It is our main and almost only chance here
of getting any money.”
“So I have always understood, and therefore made up my mind to go into
it, if I can get ready. I have been down the river to-day and engaged
my seed wheat. To-morrow I thought of going abroad again, to try to
engage some help for clearing the piece.”
“Well, you need not go a rod for that purpose.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have got up a bee for you in the settlement, large enough,
we think, to log off your whole piece in a day.”
“Indeed! Who has been so kind as to start such a project?”
“Several of us: Codman, that you may have seen, or at least heard of,
as the best trapper in the settlement, took upon himself to enlist
those round the southerly end of the lake, where he lives; and I have
arranged matters a little in this section and on the river below. But,
in justice, I should name, as the man who has taken the most interest
in the movement, the new settler who has this summer come into the
parts, and made his pitch over on the Magalloway. His name is Gurley.”
A dead silence of several minutes ensued, during which Mrs. Elwood
looked sadly and meaningly from the husband to the son, both of whose
countenances seemed to fall and shrink before her significant glances.
“Well,” at length resumed the hunter, perceiving no response was to be
made to his last remark, “seeing we had got all arranged and ready, I
came to notify you, so that you should not be taken by surprise. We
propose to be on the ground, men and oxen, early day after to-morrow.
There will be fifteen or twenty of us, perhaps, with five or six yoke
of oxen, and like enough a stiff horse or two.”
“But how can I provision such a company on so short notice?”
“No trouble about that. You have salt pork?”
“A good supply.”
“Corn meal?”
“Yes; and wheat flour, with fine new potatoes.”
“All right. I will take care of the rest. I will take the young man,
here, into my largest canoe, to-morrow morning, if he be so disposed,
and we will go up the lake, perhaps into the upper lake, and it will
be a strange case if we don’t return at night with fish, and I think
flesh, enough to victual the company; and, in the mean time, my women
will come up and be on hand to-morrow and next day, to help Mrs. Elwood
do the baking and cooking.”
The friendly movement of the neighbors, thus announced, was not, of
course, to be opposed or questioned by those for whose benefit it was
intended, any further than Mr. Elwood had done in relation to his
ability to entertain the company so well as their kindness deserved.
Mr. Elwood and his son, indeed, who had been dreading the hard job
of clearing off their land, were greatly gratified at the unexpected
kindness. And even Mrs. Elwood, pained and annoyed as she was by the
part taken by Gaut Gurley, whose only motive she believed was to gain
some advantage for meditated evil, entered cheerfully into the affair,
and joined her husband in handsome expressions of acknowledgment to
the hunter, and assurances of doing their best to provide properly for
the company. The matter was therefore considered as settled; and the
hunter departed, to call, as he had proposed, early the next morning
for Claud, for an excursion up the lake, to procure fresh provisions
for the coming occasion.
The family were early astir the next morning, intent on their
respective duties in preparation for the appointed logging bee. They
had scarcely dispatched their breakfast, before the hunter, as he had
promised, called for Claud; when the two departed together, with their
guns and fishing gear, for the lake, whither we propose to accompany
them.
“Well, now, let us settle the order of the day,” said Phillips, after
they had reached the landing and deposited their luggage in the canoe
selected for the purpose.
“I am a companion of the voyage, to-day, and, as you know, but a
learner in these sports,” responded Claud. “You have but to name your
plan.”
“Well, my plan is this: to steer across and get up the lake to the
inlet and rapids which connect this to the next upper lake, called by
the Indians the Molechunk-a-munk; up these rapids into that lake, where
we will take a row of a few hours, and home again by nightfall. In
these rapids, going or returning, we may safely count, at this season,
on a plenty of trout; and, on the borders of the lake beyond, I know
of several favorite haunts of the deer, one of which I propose to take
into the canoe as ballast to steady it for running the rapids, on our
way back.”
“What is the whole distance?”
“Four or five miles of this lake, as many of the river or rapids, and
as far into the upper lake as we please.”
“You are laying out largely for one day, are you not?”
“No, ’tis nothing. You see, I have brought round for our use my best
birch bark canoe. I have rowed her fifty miles a day round the lakes
many a time. We shall bound over the lake in almost no time, and the
rapids, which are the only drawback, can soon be surmounted, by oar or
setting-pole, or, what may be cheapest, carrying the canoe round those
most difficult of passage. The boat does not weigh an hundred. I could
travel with it a mile on my head, as fast as you would wish to walk
without a pound of luggage. So, in with you, and I’ll show you how it
is done.”
Accordingly they launched forth in their primitive craft, which, as
before intimated, was the once noted birch bark canoe built by the
hunter agreeably to the exact rules of Indian art. Few, who have never
seen and observed the process of constructing this canoe, which, for
thousands of years before the advent of the white man, was the only
craft used by the aborigines in navigating the interior waters, have
any idea how, from such seemingly fragile materials, and with no other
tools than a hatchet, knife, and perhaps a bone needle, the Indian can
construct a canoe so extremely light and at the same time so tough and
durable. In building his canoe, which is one of the greatest efforts
of his mechanical skill, the Indian goes to work systematically. He
first peels his bark from a middle-sized birch tree, and cuts it in
strips five or six inches wide, and twelve, fifteen, or twenty feet
long, according to the length and size of the designed canoe. He then
dries them thoroughly in the sun, after which he nicely scrapes and
smooths off the outside. He next proceeds to soak these strips, which
are thus made to go through a sort of tanning process, to render them
tough and pliable, as well as to obviate their liability to crack by
exposure to the sun. After the materials are thus prepared, he smooths
off a level piece of ground, and drives around the outside a line of
strong stakes, so that the space within shall describe the exact form
of the boat in contemplation. Inside of these stakes he places and
braces up the wet and pliable pieces of bark, beginning at the bottom
and building up and bending into form the sides and ends, till the
structure has attained the required height. In this situation it is
left till it is again thoroughly dried and all the pieces become fixed
in shape. A light inside framework is then constructed, resembling the
skeleton of a fish, and of dimensions to fit the canoe already put in
form in the manner we have described. The pieces of cured material are
then numbered and taken down; when the architect, beginning at the
bottom, lapping and sewing together the different pieces, proceeds
patiently in his work, till the sides are built, the ends closed nicely
up, and each piece lashed firmly to the framework, which, though of
surprising lightness, is made to serve as keel, knees, and ribs of the
boat. Every seam and crevice is then filled with melted pitch. The
Indian then has his canoe fit for use; and he may well boast of a boat,
which, for combined strength and lightness, and especially for capacity
of burden, no art of the shipbuilder has ever been able to surpass,
and which, if it has not already, might serve for a model of the best
lifeboat ever constructed, in these days of boasted perfection in
marine arts and improvements.
Bounding over the smooth waters like a seabird half on wing, our
voyagers soon found themselves on the northerly side of the lake; when,
rounding a point, they began to skirt the easterly shore of the bay
that makes up to the inlet, at a more leisurely pace, for the purpose
of being on the lookout for deer, which might be standing in the edge
of the water round the coves, to cool themselves and keep off the
flies. Not seeing any signs of game, however, they steered out so as
to clear the various little capes or woody points of land inclosing
the numerous coves scattered along the indented shore, and struck a
line for the great inlet at the head of the lake, which they now soon
reached, and commenced rowing against the at first gentle and then
rapid current, which here pours down from the upper lakes, through the
rocky and picturesque defiles, in the form of a magnificent river,
rivalling in its size the midway portions of the Connecticut or Hudson.
“Now, young man,” said the hunter, laying aside his paddle and taking
up the strong, elastic setting-pole he had provided for the occasion,
“now you must look out for your balance. The river, to be sure, is
quite low, and the current, of course, at its feeblest point; but we
shall find places enough within the next mile where the canoe, to go up
at all, must go up like the jump of a catamount. So, down in the bottom
of the boat, on your braced knees, with your haunches on your heels,
and leave all to me.”
“What! do you expect to force the canoe up rapids like these?” asked
Claud, in surprise, as he cast his eye over the long reach of eddying,
tumbling waters, that looked like a lessening sheet of foam as it lay
stretched upward in the distant perspective.
“I expect to try,” coolly replied the hunter; “and, if you lay asleep
in the bottom of the canoe, I should expect to succeed. And, as it is,
if you can keep cool and obey orders, we will see what can be done.”
Claud implicitly obeyed the directions of the hunter, without much
faith, however, in the success of his bold attempt. But he soon
perceived he had underrated the skill and strength of arm which had
been relied on to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat. Standing
upright and slightly bracing in the bottom of his canoe, the hunter
first marked out with his eye his course through a given reach of the
rock-broken and foaming waters above; then, nicely calculating the
resisting force of each rapid to be overcome, and the required impetus,
and the direction to be given to his canoe to effect it, he sharply bid
Claud be on his guard, and sent the light craft like an arrow into the
boiling eddies before him. And now, by sudden and powerful shoves, he
was seen shooting obliquely up one rapid; tacking with the quickness
of light, and darting off zigzag among the rocks and eddies towards
another, which was in turn surmounted; while the boat was forced,
surging and bounding forward, with increasing impetus, now up and now
athwart the rushing currents, till he had gained a resting-place in the
still water of some sheltering boulder in the stream, when he would
mark off, with a rapid glance, another reach of falls, and shoot in
among them as before. Thus, with the quick tacks and turns and sudden
leaps of the ascending salmon, and almost with the celerity, he made
his way up the long succession of rapids, until the last of the series
was overcome, and he found himself safely emerging into the smooth
waters of the beautiful lakelet or pond which divides, in the upper
portion of its course, this remarkable stream. Another row of a mile
or so now brought the voyagers where the water again took the form of
a swift river, tumbling and foaming over the rocks, in the last series
of rapids to be overcome. These also were surmounted in the same manner
and with the same success as the former.
But this part of the voyage was marked with an unexpected adventure,
and one which seemed destined to lead to the operation of new and
singular moral agencies, both in the near and more distant future,
having an important bearing on the fate and fortunes of young Elwood.
They had reached the last and most difficult of all the rapids yet
encountered, and were resting, preparatory to the anticipated struggle,
in a smooth piece of water under the lee of a huge rock, on either side
of which the divided stream rushed in two foam-covered torrents, with
the force and swiftness of a mill-race; when they were startled by the
shrill exclamations of a female voice, in tones indicative of surprise
and alarm. The sounds, which came from some unseen point not far above
them in the stream, were evidently drawing near at a rapid rate.
Presently a small Indian canoe, with a single female occupant, whose
youth and beauty, even in the distance, were apparent, shot swiftly
into view, and came tossing and whirling down the stream, unguided, and
wholly at the mercy of the crooked and raging currents along which it
was borne with the speed of the wind. The imperilled maiden uttered a
cry of joy at the appearance of our voyagers, and held up the handle
of a broken oar, to indicate to them at once the cause of her fearful
dilemma and need of assistance.
“I will throw her one of our paddles, and she will best take care of
herself,” hurriedly exclaimed the hunter, seizing the implement, and
awaiting her nearest approach to throw it within her reach.
The critical point was the next instant reached, but the hunter, in his
nervous anxiety and haste, made his throw a little too soon and with
too much force. The paddle struck directly under the prow of the canoe,
and shot beyond, far out of reach of the expectant maiden’s extended
hands. Another oar was hurled after her, with no better effect; when,
for the first time, a shade of despair passed over her agitated
countenance; for she saw herself rapidly drifting directly into the
jaws of a wild and fearful labyrinth of breakers not fifty yards
below, where, in all probability, her fragile canoe would be dashed
to pieces, and herself thrown against the slippery and jagged rock,
drawn down, and lost. Claud, who had witnessed, with trembling anxiety,
the hunter’s vain attempts to place the means of self-preservation in
the hands of the maiden, and who now perceived, in their full light,
the perils of the path to which she was helplessly hastening, could
restrain his generous impulses no longer; and, quickly throwing off his
hat and coat, he leaped overboard, dashed headlong into the current,
and struck boldly down it to overtake the receding canoe.
“Hold! madness! They will both perish together!” rapidly exclaimed
the hunter, surprised and alarmed at the rash attempt of his young
companion. “But I will share in their dangers,--perhaps save them, yet.”
Accordingly he hastily headed round his canoe, and, hazardous as he
knew must be the experiment, sent it surging down the current after
his endangered young friends; for the one, as will soon appear, was no
less his favorite than the other. In the mean time, Claud, in swimming
over a sunken rock, luckily gained a foothold, which enabled him to
rise and plunge forward again with redoubled speed; and, so well-timed
and powerful were his exertions, that he came within reach of the
stern of the fugitive canoe just as it was whirling round sideways in
the reflux of the waves caused by the water dashing against a high
rock standing partly in the current. It was a moment of life or death,
both to the man and maiden; for the boat was on the point of going
broadside over the first fall into the wild and seething waters, seen
leaping and roaring in whirlpools and jets of foam among the intricate
passes of the ragged rocks below. Making sure of his grasp on the end
of the canoe that had been thus fortunately thrown within his reach,
the struggling Claud made an effort to draw it from the edge of the
abyss into which it was about to be precipitated; but, with his most
desperate exertions, he was barely enabled to keep it in position,
while his strength was rapidly giving way. The unequal contest was
quickly noticed by the hapless girl; and, after watching a moment,
with a troubled eye, the fruitless efforts and wasting strength of
the young man, she calmly rose to her feet, exhibiting, as she stood
upright in the boat, with the spray dashing over her marble forehead
and long flowing hair, in the faultless symmetry of her person, the
beautiful cast of her features, and the touching eloquence of her
speaking countenance, a figure which might well serve as a subject for
the pencil of the artist.
“Let go, brave stranger,” she cried, in clear, silvery tones, after
throwing a grateful and admiring glance down upon her gallant rescuer;
“let me go, and save yourself. I can die as befits a daughter of my
people.”
“Hold on, there, Claud! Courage, girl! I see a way to save you both,”
at that critical instant rang above the roar of the waters the sharp
voice of the hunter, who, with wonderful tact and celerity, had shot
down obliquely across the main current, out of it through a narrow side
pass, down that and round the intervening rocks, and was now driving
with main strength up another pass, abreast of the objects of his
anxiety. “There: now seize the head of my canoe, and hold on to both;
and, on your life, be quick!” he continued, shouting to the exhausted
young man, while he himself was struggling with all his might to get
and keep his boat in the right position among the battling currents.
After one or two ineffectual attempts, Claud, with a last desperate
effort, fortunately succeeded in securing his grasp on the hunter’s
boat, without losing his hold on the other; when, with one mighty
effort of the latter, they were all drawn out of the vortex together,
and soon brought safely to shore.
“Fluella, my fair young friend,” said the hunter, taking a long breath,
and respectfully turning to the rescued girl, as the party stepped on
to the dry beach, “I have not often--no, never--felt more rejoiced than
now, in seeing you stand here in safety.”
“I know the danger I have been in,” responded the maiden, feelingly. “O
yes, know to remember, and know to remember, also, those who made my
escape. Mr. Phillips, I am grateful much.”
“Don’t thank _me_,” promptly replied the hunter. “I am ashamed not to
have been the first in the rescue, when the chief’s daughter was in
danger.”
“But, Mr. Phillips,” rejoined the other, with an expressive smile, “you
have not told me who this stranger is, who seemed to measure the value
of his own life by such a worthless thing as mine.”
“True, no,” returned the hunter; “but this gentleman, Fluella, is young
Mr. Claud Elwood, who, with his father and mother, has recently moved
into the settlement; and they are now my nearest neighbors, at the foot
of the lower lake. And to you, Claud, I have to say, that this young
lady is the daughter of Wenongonet, the red chief, the original lord of
these lakes, and still living on the one next above.”
Both the maiden and her gallant young preserver seemed equally
surprised, at the announcement of each others’ name and character: the
former, because it suggested questions in the solution of which she
felt an interest, but which, with the characteristic prudence of her
race, she forbore to ask; and the latter, because he found it hard to
realize that the fair-complexioned and every way beautiful girl, who
stood before him, readily speaking his own language, and neatly and
richly arrayed in the usual female habiliments of the day, with the
single exception of the gay, beaded moccasins, that enveloped her small
feet and ankles,--found it extremely difficult to realize that one of
such an exterior, and of so much evident culture, could possibly have
descended from the tawny and uncultivated sons of the forest.
“You two should hereafter be friends, should you not?” observed the
hunter, perceiving their mutual restraint, of which he wished to
relieve them.
Rousing himself, with a prompt affirmative reply to the question, Claud
gallantly advanced, and extended his hand to his fair companion, who,
with evident emotion, and a slight suffusion of the cheek, gave him her
own in return, as she said:
“O yes. Mr. Phillips’ friend is my friend, and, I--I--why, I can’t
thank him _now_; the words don’t come; the thanks remain unshaped in my
heart.”
“Excuse me,” replied Claud, “excuse me if I say, Miss Fluella, as Mr.
Phillips calls you, that you have already expressed, and in the finest
terms, far more than I am entitled to; so let that pass, and tell us
how your mishap occurred?”
“O, naturally enough, though rather stupidly,” responded the other,
regaining her ease and usually animated manner. “You must know that I
sometimes play the Indian girl, in doing my father’s trouting. And,
having rowed down to the rapids this morning for that purpose, I ran
my canoe on to a rock, up here at the head of the fails, and threw
into an eddy below, till I had taken a supply. But, like other folks,
I must have the _one more_,--a large one I had seen playing round my
hook; and, in my eagerness to take him, I did not notice that my canoe
had slipped off the rock till I found it drifting down the current.
I seized my oar, but, with the first blow in the water it snapt in
my hands. You know the rest, unless, perhaps, the number of fish I
caught,” she added, pointing to a string of fine trout still lying
safely in the bottom of her canoe.
“Brave girl!” exclaimed the hunter, going up to the boat with Claud,
to inspect the fish, which they had not before noticed. “A good ten
pounds, and fine ones, too. Claud shall remain here while I go a piece
up the lake for a deer, and follow your example, except the race down
the rapids; but that he can’t do, for I shall take our canoe with me,
and make him fish from the shore, which will be just as well. Are you
agreed to that arrangement, young man?”
This proposition being accepted, and it being also settled by common
consent that no further attempt should, at this time, be made to ascend
the remaining rapids with either of the boats, the hunter and Claud,
accompanied by the light-footed Fluella, took up her canoe and set off
with it, along shore, towards a convenient landing in the lake above,
then not more than sixty or seventy rods distant. In a short time the
proposed landing was reached, and the boat let down into the water.
The maiden, with an easy and sprightly movement, then flung herself
into her seat, and, with a paddle hastily whittled for her out of a
piece of drift-wood, by the ever ready hunter, sent her little craft in
a curving sweep into the lake; when, facing round to her preservers,
while a sweet and grateful smile broke over her dimpling features,
she bade and bowed them adieu, and went bounding over the undulating
waves towards her home, on an island some miles distant, near the
southeastern border of this romantic sheet of water.
“Can it be,” half-soliloquized Claud, as he stood rivetting his
wondering gaze on the beauteous figure, which, gracefully bowing with
the lightly-dipping oar, was receding from his rapt view, and gradually
melting away in the distance; “can it be that she is but a mere Indian
girl, one of those wild, untutored children of the forest?”
“It is even so, young man,” responded the hunter, rousing himself from
the reverie into which he also seemed to have fallen at the departure
of his fair favorite; “it is even so; but, for all that, the very
flower of all the womankind, white or red, according to my ideas, that
ever graced the borders of these lakes.”
“But how came she by those neatly-turned English features, and that
clear, white complexion?”
“Why, her mother, who is now dead, was an uncommon handsome woman for
a squaw, and had, as I perhaps should have qualified when I answered
so about this girl, some white blood in her veins; or rather had, as
the old chief once told me, somewhere away back among the gone-by
generations, a female ancestor, a pure white woman, who was made
captive by the Indians, and married into their tribe, and who was as
handsome as a picture. But the white blood seemed to have been pretty
much lost among the descendants, till the appearance of this nonsuch of
a girl, in whom every drop of it seemed to have again been collected.”
“Some might, perhaps, draw different conclusions in the case.”
“Yes, and draw them very wrongfully, too, as I have no doubt many
people do in such cases; for I have often noticed it among families,
and ascertained it as a fact, that where a person of particular looks
and character once lived, his or her like, though not coming out
visibly in any of the descendants for a long time, is sure sooner or
later to appear, and so will frequently leap out in a child four or
five generations off; a complete copy, in looks, blood, and character,
of the original (as far as can be judged from family tradition), who
may have been dead an hundred years. This is my notion; and I hold
that every person is destined to be at least once reproduced among some
of his descendants. I, or the exact like of me, will likely enough
be seen in some of my blood descendants, fifty or an hundred years
hence, building dams or mills on these very falls, or even riding in a
carriage around these wild lakes, where I have spent nearly my whole
life in hunting moose, and the other wild animals known only in the
unbroken forest.”
“Your theory may be true, but it does not quite account, I think, for
the evident intelligence and culture of this remarkable girl. To appear
and converse as she does, she must have seen considerable of good
society out of the forest, and, I should think, schools.”
“She has, both. Her father, one fall, when she was a girl of ten or
eleven, took her along with him to a city on the coast, where he went
to sell his furs and nice basket-work, and where she, some how, excited
the lively interest of a good family, and particularly of a wealthy
gentleman then living in the family. Well, the short of the matter is,
that they persuaded the chief to leave her through the winter; and,
she becoming a favorite with them all, they instructed her, sent her
to school, and dressed her as they would an own daughter, and would
only part with her in the spring on condition of her returning in the
fall. And so it has gone on till now, she living with them winters, and
here with her father summers; for, though they would like to take her
entirely out of the woods, she would not desert her father, who loves
her as his life, and calls her the light of his lodge,--no, not for all
the gold in the cities.”
“You must then be well acquainted with this Indian family, and can give
me their history.”
“As far as is proper for me to tell, as well as anybody, perhaps. When
I was a young man, I at times used to live with the chief, who always
made me welcome to his lodge, and gave me his confidence. He was then
but little past his prime, and one of the smartest men, every way,
I ever knew. He was then worth property, and lived with his first
wife, this girl’s mother, who, as I told you, was very good-looking
and intelligent. But his second wife was as homely as his first was
handsome. As to Wenongonet himself, who has now got to be, though
still active, an old man, he claims to have been a direct descendant
of Paugus,--a grandson, I believe, of that noted chief,--who was
slain in Lovewell’s bloody fight, and whose tribe, once known as the
Sokokis or Saco Indians, who were great fighters, it is said, were then
forever broken up, the most of them fleeing over the British highlands
and joining the St. Francis Indians in Canada. The family of Paugus,
however, with a few of the head men, who survived the battle, concluded
to remain this side of the mountain, and try to keep up a show of the
tribe on these lakes, where they lived till Paugus’ son, who on the
death of his father became their sagamore or chief, died, when they
gradually drew off into Canada, leaving Wenongonet, the last chief’s
son, the only permanent Indian resident, after a while, on these lakes.
But come, young man, enough of Indian matters for to-day: we must now
be stirring, or our day’s work may come short. Help me to take my canoe
up here into the lake; and, within four hours, the time to which I
will limit my absence, we will see what can be done by each, in our
different undertakings.”
The employment of another half-hour fully sufficed to place the canoe
of the hunter in the smooth water above the rapids; when the latter,
with a cheery “heigh ho,” at each light dip of his springy oar,
struck off towards the foot of the pine-covered hills that lift their
green summits from the western shores of the lake, leaving his young
companion to proceed to his allotted portion of the sports or labors
of the day. Preparing his long fishing-rod and tackle, according to
the instructions which the hunter had given him for adapting his mode
of fishing to the locality and season, Claud made his way along down
the edge of the stream to a designated point, a short distance above
the place where, on the occurrence of the incident before described,
they had ceased to ascend the rapids in their canoes. He here found, as
he had been told, below a traversing reach of bare breakers, a large,
deep eddy of gently revolving water, in the centre of which lay tossing
on the swell a broad spiral wreath of spotless foam. The hunter,
in selecting these rapids, and especially this resting-spot of the
ascending fish, as the place where he could safely warrant the taking
of the needed supply of trout, had not spoken without knowledge; for it
may well be doubted whether there could be found, in all the regions of
the north, a reach of running water of equal length with this wild and
singularly picturesque portion of the Androscoggin river, containing
such quantities of this beautiful fish as are found about midsummer,
swarming up the rapids on their way from the Umbagog to the upper lakes.
So, at least, Claud then found it; for, having passed to the most
outward point of rocks inclosing the eddy, he no sooner threw in and
drew his _skip bait_ round the borders of the foam-island just named,
than a dozen large trout shot up from beneath, and leaped splashing
along the surface, in keen rivalry for the prize of the bait. With a
second throw, he securely hooked one of a size which required all his
strength to draw it, as he at length did, flapping and floundering
to a safe landing. And for the next three hours he pursued the sport
with a success which, notwithstanding the great number that broke
away from his hook, well made good the augury of his beginning. By
that time he had caught some dozens, of sizes varying from one to
seven pounds, and enough, and more than he needed. But still he could
not forego his exciting employment, and, insensible of the lapse of
time, continued his drafts on the seemingly inexhaustible eddy, till
roused by the long, shrill _halloo_ of the returned hunter, summoning
him to the landing above. Throwing down his pole by the side of his
proud display of fish, he hastened up to the lake, where he found the
hunter complacently employed in removing, for lightness of carriage,
the head and offal of a noble fat buck; when the two, with mutual
congratulations on their success, took up the canoe, and, with a
stop only long enough to take in the trout, carried and launched
their richly-freighted craft at a convenient place in the stream
below. Seeing Claud securely seated in the bottom of the canoe, and
the freight nicely balanced, the hunter took his paddle, instead of
setting-pole, the better to restrain the speed of the boat at the most
rapid and dangerous passes, and struck out into the current, adown
which, under the quick and skilful strokes of its experienced oarsman,
it was borne with almost the swiftness of a bird on the wing, till
it reached the quiet waters of the pond; and, this being soon passed
over, they entered and descended the next reach of rapids with equal
speed and safety. All the dangers and difficulties were now over; and,
leisurely rowing homeward, they were, by sunset, at the cottage of the
Elwoods, displaying the fruits of their enterprise, and recounting
their singular adventures to the surprised and gratified inmates.