IN THE WILDERNESS.
When Sam went over the cliff, he thought of poor little Judie, and Tom
and Joe, and, for their sake more than his own, took every precaution
which might give him an additional chance of life. He knew that he
should fall into the creek, and that the blow, when he struck the water,
would be a very severe one. If he could keep his horse under him all the
way, however, the animal and not he would be the chief sufferer. Fearing
that the horse would hesitate at the cliff, blunder, and throw him a
somersault, perhaps falling on him, he held the beast's head high and
urged him forward at full speed, and so, as we have seen, the horse's
back was almost level as he leaped from the top of the bank. Sam had no
saddle or stirrups in which to become entangled, and as the horse
struck the water fairly, the blow was not nearly so severe a shock to
the boy as he had expected. Both went under the water, but rising again
in a moment Sam slid off the animal's back, to give the poor fellow a
better chance of escape by swimming. Striking out boldly Sam reached the
bank and crawling up looked for his horse. The poor beast was evidently
too severely hurt to swim with ease, and so he drifted away, Sam running
along the bank, calling and encouraging him. He struck the shore at
last, and Sam examining him found that while he was stunned and bruised
no serious damage had been done.
"Poor fellow," he said, stroking the colt's head, "you cannot serve me
any further in this swamp, but you saved my life and I'm glad you're not
killed anyhow."
Then taking the bridle off, he turned the horse loose, to graze and
browse at will in the dense growth of the swamp.
Sam was feverish still, and very weak, but his anxiety to reach the root
fortress again was an overmastering impulse. He had lost his bearings in
the mad chase, and the sky was so overcast that he could make no use of
the sun as a guide. He knew that his course lay nearly northward, and it
was his purpose to travel only at night, as before; but unless he could
get out of the swamp during the day, and ascertain in what direction he
must travel, he could not go on during the night at all. If it should
clear off by evening, the pole star would show him his way, but there
was no promise of a clearing away. He must find the course during the
day, and he set about it at once, after examining his salt bag which he
had put around his body, under his shirt, on the night on which he got
it. The salt was saturated with water, and Sam's first impulse was to
wring it out; but it occurred to him that the water he should squeeze
out of it would be salt water, or in other words, that some of the salt
would come away with the water and be lost. If he let it dry gradually,
however, all the salt would remain, and he determined to let it dry,
carrying it, with that in view, over his shoulder. How to find out which
way was north was the question, and it puzzled him sorely. He knew the
general course of all the creeks in that part of the country, but as
they wind about in every direction it was impossible to get any
information out of the one he was near. It was his habit, when he wanted
to solve any difficult problem, to sit down and think of it in all its
bearings, and a very excellent habit that is too. Nearly half our
blunders, all through life, might be avoided if we would think carefully
before acting; and nearly half the useful things we know, have been
found out simply by somebody's thinking. Sam sat down on a log and said
to himself;--
"Now if there is anything in the woods which always or nearly always
points in any one direction, I can find it by looking. Then I can find
out which way it points, by remembering how the woods look around home,
where I know the points of the compass."
This was an excellent beginning, and Sam straightway began looking for
something which should guide him. A patch of sunflowers grew by the
creek, and he had heard that they always turn their heads to the sun,
but upon examining them, he found some of them turned one way and some
another, so that they were of no use whatever. Presently he observed
some beautiful green moss growing at the root and for a good many feet
up the trunk of a tree, and looking around he saw that the moss at the
roots of all the trees grew only or chiefly on one side, and that the
covered side was the same with all of them. Here was a uniform habit of
vegetation, and Sam knew enough to know that such a habit was not likely
to be confined to one particular locality. He began thinking of the
woods around home, and especially of a clump of trees in the yard at his
father's house, the moss-covered roots of which were Judie's favorite
playing place. This moss, he remembered, was nearly all on the north
side of the trees, whose southern roots were bare. All the other mossy
trees he could remember taught the same lesson, namely, that the green
moss which grows around the bases of trees, grows chiefly on the north
side. He had no doubt that the law was a general, if not a universal
one, and as the mossy trees were very numerous, he had a guide easily
followed. Striking out northwardly, therefore, he travelled several
miles before stopping, coming then to a suitable resting-place he lay
down to gather strength for the night's journey. When night came,
however, it had been raining for some hours, and in addition to the
darkness of a rainy night in a swamp, Sam found the soft alluvial soil
so saturated with water that he sank almost to his knees at every step.
Finding it impossible to go on he stopped again on the highest and
dryest piece of ground he could find, and prepared to spend the night
there. Cutting down a number of thick-leaved bushes he arranged them
against a fallen tree, as a shelter.
He had been lying down but a short time when he discovered that pretty
nearly all the rain that fell on his bush roof found its way through in
great drops from the leaves. It then occurred to him that he had erred
in placing the bushes with their tops up. This indeed, made them mere
catchers and conductors of water to the space they covered. Turning
them, so that their drooping leaves pointed downward, he was not long in
making a really comfortable shelter, through which very little water
could find its way.
Towards morning he waked and found himself lying in water. He could see
nothing in the darkness, but supposed that the rain had in some way made
a pool where he was lying. On coming out from his tent, however, he
found matters much worse than he had thought. In whatever direction he
looked he could see nothing but water, and he knew what the trouble was.
The rain had been very heavy all along the creek, and the stream having
very little fall had spread out over the whole surface of the swamp.
There was nothing to do except wait for daylight, and he climbed upon
the trunk of the fallen tree to get out of the water while he waited.
The rain had ceased to fall, and he had therefore no reason to fear any
great increase in the depth of the surrounding water.
When morning came, Sam found that he was not the only occupant of the
fallen tree. A fine large opossum had taken refuge in one of the upper
branches, and Sam used his rifle to good purpose in bringing him down.
He was still suffering somewhat from the fever, though the excitement of
his recent ride had done much to relieve him, as anything which occupies
one's mind is apt to do in fevers of that sort, but he was nevertheless
extremely hungry, not having tasted food of any kind for nearly two
days, and having previously lived for a long time, as we know, upon an
insufficient and not very wholesome diet. He was delighted therefore to
get a fat young opossum for breakfast. The next thing was to cook it.
Sam was in no danger here from Indians, who were not likely to be in
such a swamp at any time, and were certainly not then, when the swamp
was full of water. He had no objection therefore to a fire, but where
and how to build one he was at some loss to determine. Looking carefully
around he discovered that in falling the great sycamore tree on which he
stood had thrown up a large mound of earth at its roots, as big trees in
blowing down nearly always do. This mound was well above the water, even
at its base, and here Sam determined to roast his opossum. He first dug
a hole in the ground, making it about two feet long, one foot wide and
eighteen inches deep. This was to be his fireplace and oven. He next
collected dry bark from the under side of the fallen tree, and by
breaking off its dead and well-seasoned limbs secured several large
armfuls of wood. Then taking from his leathern bullet-pouch a piece of
greased rag, kept there to wrap bullets in before ramming them in the
barrel, he placed it in the "pan" of his rifle. Does the reader know
what the "pan" of a rifle is? If not he knows nothing of flintlock guns,
and I must explain. Before the invention of percussion caps, guns were
provided with a little groove-shaped trough by the side of the powder
chamber. From this "pan" as it was called, a little hole led into the
charge. Over the pan fitted a piece of steel on a hinge, so that it
could be opened and shut at pleasure. This piece of steel, after
covering the pan, extended diagonally upward, and its surface was
roughened like the face of a file. When the rifleman had loaded his gun
he opened the pan, poured in a little powder and closed it again. In the
hammer was a piece of flint, and when the trigger was pulled the flint
came down with great force into the pan, scraping the roughened steel as
it came, and raising the pan cover on its hinge. It thus deposited a
shower of sparks in the pan, set fire to the powder there and through it
to the charge in the gun.
Sam's object was merely to get fire, however,--not to discharge his
rifle,--wherefore, without reloading it, after shooting the opossum, he
merely filled the pan with powder, placed the greasy rag in it, and
cocking the gun pulled the trigger. In a moment the rag was burning, and
before many minutes had passed, Sam had a good fire burning in and over
the hole he had dug. He then skinned and dressed the opossum, stopping
now and then to replenish the fire and to throw all the live coals into
the hole as they formed. Within an hour the hole was full of burning
coals, and hot enough, Sam thought, for his purpose. He cut a number of
green twigs and collected a quantity of the long gray moss. He then
removed all the fire from the hole, the sides and bottom of which were
almost red hot, and passing a twig through the opossum, lowered it to
the middle of the hole, where the twig rested on ledges provided for
that purpose. This brought the dressed animal into the centre of the
hole, without permitting it to touch either the sides or the bottom. He
then laid twigs across the top of the hole, covered them with moss, and
threw nearly a foot of loose earth over the moss. The sides and bottom
of the hole, as I have said, were very hot, and Sam's plan was to keep
the heat in until it should roast the meat thoroughly. That his plan
was a good one, I know from experience, having roasted more than one
turkey in that way. It is, in fact, the very best way in which meat of
any kind can possibly be roasted at all, as it lets none of the flavor
escape in the form of gases.
Sam waited patiently for an hour, when, opening his earth oven, he found
his opossum cooked to a rich, crisp brown. He ate a heartier and more
wholesome breakfast that morning than he had eaten for weeks, and felt
afterwards altogether better and stronger than before. The breakfast
would have been an excellent one at any time, as the flesh of the
opossum tastes almost exactly like that of a suckling pig, but it was
doubly good to the poor half-famished boy. He stowed away the remains of
his feast in his coat pockets to be eaten on his way back to the root
fortress, resolving to kill some other game on the journey, for the use
of the little garrison there. He was now, as he knew, not more than ten
or twelve miles from his destination, but it was as yet impossible for
him to travel. The swamp was full of cypresses, and it is a peculiar
habit of these trees to turn their roots straight upward for any
distance, from an inch to many feet, and then to bring them straight
down again, making what are called cypress knees. These knees are very
sharp on top, and sometimes stand not more than a foot apart. Being of
all heights, many of them, as Sam knew, were under water now, and these
made travelling impossible, even if there had been no quagmires to fall
into, as there were. After studying the situation, Sam determined to
remain where he was until the water should subside, and then to travel
by daylight, at least until he should be out of the swamp and upon high
ground again. The waters of the creek subsided much more slowly than
they had risen, and Sam remained at the Sycamore Camp, as he called the
place, for four days and nights before he thought travelling again
practicable.
He then resumed his march, beset by many difficulties. The ground was
muddy everywhere, and impassably so in some places. There were many
ponds and pools left in the swamp, and these had to be avoided, so that
night had already come before he found himself fairly out of the swamp
and on the bank of the river, about two miles below the root fortress.
He now began to feel all sorts of apprehensions. He had been away
eleven days, and he could not help imagining a variety of terrible
things which might have happened to his little band during his absence.
Presently he saw a great light up the river, and at once the thought
flashed into his mind that the Indians had discovered and butchered the
boys and Judie, and were now burning the drift pile.
"I'll hurry on," he said to himself, "and if the Indians are really
there, it's time for me to take part in this war. I can keep in the
timber and pick off half a dozen of them there in the fire light. Then
if they scalp me, I don't care. I'll at least make them suffer for what
they've done."
A fierce storm was just breaking,--a storm of the violent and heroic
type seen only in tropical and sub-tropical countries, but Sam thought
nothing of that. He pushed on almost unconsciously, with no thought
except that with his rifle, hidden in the darkness, he could wage one
sharp and terrible battle with the murderers of Judie and Tom and Joe,
before suffering death at their hands. The lightning struck a tree just
ahead of him, but he seemed not to observe the fact. He was going into
battle, and what was a thunderbolt more or less at such a time. The rain
followed, drenching him instantly, but not dampening his determination
in the least.