Then a little time of rest and silence, after which the big, gentle
hunter would shoulder his pack and lift in his arms the slender
and complaining Miss Strong and carry her up the long grade of Bear
Mountain. Then he would make her comfortable and return for his pets.
That day, having gone back for the fox and the coon, he concluded to try
the experiment of putting them together. Before then he had given the
matter a good deal of thought, for if the two were in a single package,
as it were, the problem of transportation would be greatly simplified.
He could fasten the coon cage on the top of his pack, and so avoid
doubling the trail. He led the fox and carried the coon to the point
where Sinth awaited him. Then he removed the chain from the fox's
collar, carefully opened the cage, and thrust him in. The swift effort
of both animals to find quarter nearly overturned the cage. Spits and
growls of warning followed one another in quick succession. Then each
animal braced himself against an end of the cage, indulging, as it would
seem, in continuous complaint and recrimination.
"Y-you behave!" said Silas, wamingly, as he put the cage on top of his
basket and fastened a stout cord from bars to buckles.
"They 'll fight!" Sinth exclaimed.
"Let 'em f-fight," said Silas, who had sat down before his pack and
adjusted the shoulder-straps.
The growling increased as he rose carefully to his feet, and with a
swift movement coon and fox exchanged positions. Sinth descended the
long hill afoot, and Silas went on cautiously, a low, continuous murmur
of hostile sound rising in the air behind him. Each animal seemed to
think it necessary to remind the other with every breath he took that he
was prepared to defend himself. Their enmity was, it would appear, deep
and racial.
At Cedar Swamp, in the flat below, the big hunter took Sinth in his
arms. Then the sound of menace and complaint rose before and behind him.
Slowly he proceeded, his feet sinking deep in the wet moss. Stepping on
hummocks in a dead creek, he slipped and fell. The little animals
were flung about like shot in a bottle. Each seemed to hold the other
responsible for his discomfiture. They came together in deadly conflict.
The sounds in the cage resembled an explosion of fire-crackers under a
pan. Sinth lifted her voice in a loud outcry of distress and accusation.
Without a word the hunter scrambled to his feet, renewed his hold upon
the complaining Sinth, and set out for dry land. Luckily the mud was not
above his boot-tops. The cage creaked and hurtled. The animals rolled
from side to side in their noisy encounter. The indignant Sinth
struggled to get free with loud, hysteric cries. Strong ran beneath his
burden. He gained the dry trail, and set his sister upon the ground. He
flung off the shoulder-straps, and with a stick separated the animals.
He opened the cage and seized the fox by the nape of the neck, and,
before he could haul him forth, got a nip on the back of his hand. He
lifted the spitting fox and fastened the chain upon his collar. Then
Silas put his hands on his hips and blew like a frightened deer.
"Hell's b-bein' raised," he muttered, as if taking counsel with himself
against Satan. "C-careful!" He was in a mood between amusement and
anger, but was dangerously near the latter.
A little profanity, felt but not expressed, warmed his spirit, so that
he kicked the coon's cage and tumbled it bottom side up. In a moment
he recovered self-control, righted the cage, and whispered, "S-Satan's
ahead!"
The wound upon his hand was bleeding, but he seemed not to mind it.
Having done his best for the comfort of his sister, he brushed the mud
from his boots and trousers, filled his pipe, and sat meditating in a
cloud of tobacco-smoke. Presently he rose and shouldered his pack and
untied the fox and lifted the coon cage.
"I'll walk if it kills me!" Sinth exclaimed, rising with a sigh of utter
recklessness.
"'T-'tain't fur," said Strong, as they renewed their journey.
It was past mid-day when they got to camp, and Sinth lay down to
rest while he fried some ham and boiled the potatoes and made tea and
flapjacks by an open fire.
When he sat on his heels and held his pan over the fire, the long
woodsman used to shut up, as one might say, somewhat in the fashion of
a jack-knife. He was wont to call it "settin' on his hunches." His great
left hand served for a movable screen to protect his face from the heat.
As the odor and sound of the frying rose about him, his features took on
a look of-great benevolence. It was a good part of the meal to hear him
announce, "Di-dinner," in a tender and cheerful tone. As he spoke it the
word was one of great capacity for suggestion. When the sound of it rose
and lingered on its final r, that day they arrived at Lost River camp,
Sinth awoke and came out-of-doors.
"Strong's g-gainin'!" he exclaimed, cheerfully, meaning thereby to
indicate that he hoped soon to overtake his enemy.
The table of bark, fastened to spruce poles, each end lying in a crotch,
had been covered with a mat of ferns and with clean, white dishes. Silas
began to convey the food from fire to table. To his delight he observed
that "Mis' Strong" had gone into retirement. The face of his sister now
wore its better look of sickliness and resignation.
"Opeydildock?" he inquired, tenderly, pouring from a flask into a cup.
"No, sir," she answered, curtly, her tone adding a rebuke to her
negative answer.
"Le's s-set," said he, soberly.
They sat and ate their dinner, after which Silas went back on the trail
to cut and bring wood for the camp-fire. When his job was finished, the
rooms were put to rights, the stove was hot and clean, and an excellent
supper waiting.
Strong's camp consisted of three little log cabins and a large
cook-tent. The end of each cabin was a rude fireplace built of flat
rocks enclosed by upright logs which, lined with sheet-iron, towered
above the roof for a chimney. Each floor an odd mosaic of wooden blocks,
each wall sheathed with redolent strips of cedar, each rude divan
bottomed with deer-skin and covered with balsam pillows, each bedstead
of peeled spruce neatly cut and joined--the whole represented years of
labor. Every winter Silas had come through the woods on a big sled with
"new improvements" for camp. Now there were spring-beds and ticks filled
with husks in the cabins, a stove and all needed accessories in the
cook-tent.
Ever since he could carry a gun Silas had set his traps and hunted
along the valley of Lost River, ranging over the wild country miles from
either shore. Twenty thousand acres of the wilderness, round about, had
belonged to Smith & Gordon, who gave him permission to build his camp.
When he built, timber and land had little value. Under the great,
green roof from Bear Mountain to Four Ponds, from the Raquette to the
Oswegatchie, one might have enjoyed the free hospitality of God.
From a time he could not remember, this great domain had been the home
of Silas Strong. He loved it, and a sense of proprietorship had grown
within him. Therein he had need only of matches, a blanket, and a rifle.
One might have led him blindfolded, in the darkest night, to any part
of it and soon he would have got his bearings. In many places the very
soles of his feet would have told him where he stood.
Long ago its owners had given him charge of this great tract. He had
forbidden the hounding of deer and all kinds of greedy slaughter, and
had made campers careful with fire. Soon he came to be called "The
Emperor of the Woods," and every hunter respected his laws.
Slowly steam-power broke through the hills and approached the ramparts
of the Emperor. This power was like one of the many hands of the
republic gathering for its need. It started wheels and shafts and bore
day and night upon them. Now the song of doom sounded in far corridors
of the great sylvan home of Silas Strong.
It was only a short walk to where the dead hills lay sprinkled over with
ashes, their rock bones bleaching in the sun beneath columns of charred
timber. The spruce and pine had gone with the ever-flowing stream, and
their dead tops had been left to dry and burn with unquenchable fury at
the touch of fire, and to destroy everything, root and branch, and the
earth out of which it grew.
It concerned him much to note, everywhere, signs of a change in
proprietorship. In Strong's youth one felt, from end to end of the
forest, this invitation of its ancient owner, "Come all ye that are
weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Now one saw much of
this legend in the forest ways, "All persons are forbidden trespassing
on this property under penalty of the law." Proprietorship had,
seemingly, passed from God to man. The land was worth now thirty
dollars an acre. Silas had established his camp when the boundaries were
indefinite and the old banners of welcome on every trail, and he felt
the change.