ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL
Next morning we scouted ahead and found that the trail led to a small
lake some five and a half miles beyond our camp. For a mile or so the
brush was pretty thick and the trail was difficult to follow, but
beyond that it was comparatively well defined though exceedingly steep,
the hill rising to an elevation of one thousand and fifty feet above
the Nascaupee River in the first two miles. We had fifteen hundred
pounds of outfit to carry upon our backs, and I realized that at first
we should have to trail slowly and make several loads of it, for, with
the exception of Pete, none of the men was in training. The work was
totally different from anything to which they had been accustomed, and
as I did not wish to break their spirits or their ardor, I instructed
them to carry only such packs as they could walk under with perfect
ease until they should become hardened to the work.
The weather had been cool and bracing, but as if to add to our
difficulties the sun now boiled down, and the black flies--"the devil's
angels" some one called them, came in thousands to feast upon the
newcomers and make life miserable for us all. Duncan was as badly
treated by them as any of us, although he belonged to the country, and
I overheard him swearing at a lively gait soon after the little beasts
began their attacks.
"Why, Duncan," said I, "I didn't know you swore."
"I does, sir, sometimes--when things makes me," he replied.
"But it doesn't help matters any to swear, does it?"
"No, sir, but" (swatting his face) "damn the flies--it's easin' to the
feelin's to swear sometimes."
On several occasions after this I heard Duncan "easin' his feelin's" in
long and astounding bursts of profane eloquence, but he did try to
moderate his language when I was within earshot. Once I asked him:
"Where in the world did you learn to swear like that, Duncan?"
"At the lumber camps, sir," he replied.
In the year I had spent in Labrador I had never before heard a planter
or native of Groswater Bay swear. But this explained it. The
lumbermen from "civilization" were educating them.
At one o'clock on July first, half our outfit was portaged to the
summit of the hill and we ate our dinner there in the broiling sun, for
we were above the trees, which ended some distance below us. It was
fearfully hot--a dead, suffocating heat--with not a breath of wind to
relieve the stifling atmosphere, and some one asked what the
temperature was.
"Eighty-seven in the shade, but no shade," Richards remarked as he
threw down his pack and consulted the thermometer where I had placed it
under a low bush. "I'll swear it's a hundred and fifty in the sun."
During dinner Pete pointed to the river far below us, saying, "Look!
Indian canoe." I could not make it out without my binoculars, but with
their aid discerned a canoe on the river, containing a solitary
paddler. None of us, excepting Pete, could see the canoe without the
glasses, at which he was very proud and remarked: "No findin' glass
need me. See far, me. See long way off."
On other occasions, afterward, I had reason to marvel at Pete's
clearness of vision.
It was John Ahsini in the canoe, as we discovered later when he joined
us and helped Stanton up the hill with his last pack to our night camp
on the summit. I invited John to eat supper with us and he accepted
the invitation. He told us he was hunting "moshku" (bear) and was
camped at the mouth of the Red River. He assured us that we would find
no more hills like this one we were on, and, pointing to the northward,
said, "Miam potagan" (good portage) and that we would find plenty
"atuk" (caribou), "moshku" and "mashumekush" (trout). After supper I
gave John some "stemmo," and he disappeared down the trail to join his
wife in their wigwam below.
We were all of us completely exhausted that night. Stanton was too
tired to eat, and lay down upon the bare rocks to sleep. Pete
stretched our tent wigwam fashion on some old Indian tepee poles, and,
without troubling ourselves to break brush for a bed, we all soon
joined Stanton in a dreamless slumber upon his rocky couch.
The night, like the day, was very warm, and when I aroused Pete at
sunrise the next morning (July second) to get breakfast the mosquitoes
were about our heads in clouds.
A magnificent panorama lay before us. Opposite, across the valley of
the Nascaupee, a great hill held its snow-tipped head high in the
heavens. Some four miles farther up to the northwest, the river
itself, where it was choked with blocks of ice, made its appearance and
threaded its way down to the southeast until it was finally lost in the
spruce-covered valley. Beyond, bits of Grand Lake, like silver
settings in the black surrounding forest, sparkled in the light of the
rising sun. Away to the westward could be traced the rushing waters of
the Red River making their course down through the sandy ridges that
enclose its valley. To the northward lay a great undulating
wilderness, the wilderness that we were to traverse. It was Sunday
morning, and the holy stillness of the day engulfed our world.
When Pete had the fire going and the kettle singing I roused the boys
and told them we would make this, our first Sunday in the bush, an easy
one, and simply move our camp forward to a more hospitable and
sheltered spot by a little brook a mile up the trail, and then be ready
for the "tug of war" on Monday.
In accordance with this plan, after eating our breakfast we each
carried a light pack to our new camping ground, and there pitched our
tent by a tiny brook that trickled down through the rocks. While
Stanton cooked dinner, Pete brought forward a second pack. After we
had eaten, Richards suggested to Pete that they take the fish net ahead
and set it in the little lake which was still some two and a half miles
farther on the trail. They had just returned when a terrific
thunderstorm broke upon us, and every moment we expected the tent to be
carried away by the gale that accompanied the downpour of rain. It was
then that Richards remembered that he had left his blankets to dry upon
the tepee poles at the last camp. The rain ceased about five o'clock,
and Duncan volunteered to return with Richards and help him recover his
blankets, which they found far from dry.
Mosquitoes, it seemed to me, were never so numerous or vicious as after
this thunderstorm. We had head nets that were a protection from them
generally, but when we removed the nets to eat, the attacks of the
insects were simply insufferable, so we had our supper in the tent.
After our meal was finished and Pete had washed the dishes, I read
aloud a chapter from the Bible--a Sunday custom that was maintained
throughout the trip--and Stanton sang some hymns. Then we prevailed
upon him to entertain us with other songs. He had an excellent tenor
voice and a repertoire ranging from "The Holy City" to "My Brother
Bob," and these and some of the old Scotch ballads, which he sang well,
were favorites that he was often afterward called upon to render as we
gathered around our evening camp fire, smoking our pipes and drinking
in the tonic fragrance of the great solemn forest around us after a day
of hard portaging. These impromptu concerts, story telling, and
reading aloud from two or three "vest pocket" classics that I carried,
furnished our entertainment when we were not too tired to be amused.
The rain cleared the atmosphere, and Monday was cool and delightful,
and, with the exception of two or three showers, a perfect day. Camp
was moved and our entire outfit portaged to the first small lake. Our
net, which Pete and Richards had set the day before, yielded us
nothing, but with my rod I caught enough trout for a sumptuous supper.
The following morning (July fourth) Pete and I, who arose at half-past
four, had just finished preparing breakfast of fried pork, flapjacks
and coffee, and I had gone to the tent to call the others, when Pete
came rushing after me in great excitement, exclaiming, "Caribou! Rifle
quick!" He grabbed one of the 44's and rushed away and soon we heard
bang-bang-bang seven times from up the lake shore. It was not long
before Pete returned with a very humble bearing and crestfallen
countenance, and without a word leaned the rifle against a tree and
resumed his culinary operations.
"Well, Pete," said I, "how many caribou did you kill?"
"No caribou. Miss him," he replied.
"But I heard seven shots. How did you miss so many times?" I asked.
"Miss him," answered Pete. "I see caribou over there, close to water,
run fast, try get lee side so he don't smell me. Water in way. Go
very careful, make no noise, but he smell me. He hold his head up like
this. He sniff, then he start. He go through trees very quick. See
him, me, just little when he runs through trees. Shoot seven times.
Hit him once, not much. He runs off. No good follow. Not hurt much,
maybe goes very far."
"You had caribou fever, Pete," suggested Richards.
"Yes," said Easton, "caribou fever, sure thing."
"I don't believe you'd have hit him if he hadn't winded you," Stanton
remarked. "The trouble with you, Pete, is you can't shoot."
"No caribou fever, me," rejoined Pete, with righteous indignation at
such a suggestion. "Kill plenty moose, kill red deer; never have moose
fever, never have deer fever." Then turning to me he asked, "You want
caribou, Mr. Wallace?"
"Yes," I answered, "I wish we could get some fresh meat, but we can
wait a few days. We have enough to eat, and I don't want to take time
to hunt now."
"Plenty signs. I get caribou any day you want him. Tell me when you
want him, I kill him," Pete answered me, ignoring the criticisms of the
others as to his marksmanship and hunting prowess. All that day and
all the next the men let no opportunity pass to guy Pete about his lost
caribou, and on the whole he took the banter very good-naturedly, but
once confided to me that "if those boys get up early, maybe they see
caribou too and try how much they can do."
After breakfast Pete and I paddled to the other end of the little lake
to pick up the trail while the others broke camp. In a little while he
located it, a well-defined path, and we walked across it half a mile to
another and considerably larger lake in which was a small, round,
moundlike, spruce-covered island so characteristic of the Labrador
lakes.
On our way back to the first lake Pete called my attention to a fresh
caribou track in the hard earth. It was scarcely distinguishable, and
I had to look very closely to make it out. Then he showed me other
signs that I could make nothing of at all--a freshly turned pebble or
broken twig. These, he said, were fresh deer signs. A caribou had
passed toward the larger lake that very morning.
"If you want him, I get him," said Pete. I could see he felt rather
deeply his failure of the morning and that he was anxious to redeem
himself. I wanted to give him the opportunity to do so, especially as
the young men, unused to deprivations, were beginning to crave fresh
meat as a relief from the salt pork. At the same time, however, I felt
that the fish we were pretty certain to get from this time on would do
very well for the present, and I did not care to take time to hunt
until we were a little deeper into the country. Therefore I told him,
"No, we will wait a day or two."
Pete, as I soon discovered, had an insatiable passion for hunting, and
could never let anything in the way of game pass him without qualms of
regret. Sometimes, where a caribou trail ran off plain and clear in
the moss, it was hard to keep from running after it. Nothing ever
escaped his ear or eye. He had the trained senses and instincts of the
Indian hunter. When I first saw him in New York he looked so youthful
and evidently had so little confidence in himself, answering my
question as to whether he could do this or that with an aggravating "I
don't know," that I felt a keen sense of disappointment in him. But
with every stage of our journey he had developed, and now was in his
element. He was quite a different individual from the green Indian
youth whom I had first seen walking timidly beside the railway
conductor at the Grand Central Station in New York.
The portage between the lakes was an easy one and, as I have said, well
defined, and we reached the farther shore of the second lake early in
the afternoon. Here we found an old Indian camping ground covering
several acres. It had evidently been at one time a general rendezvous
of the Indians hunting in this section, as was indicated by the large
number of wigwams that had been pitched here. That was a long while
ago, however, for the old poles were so decayed that they fell into
pieces when we attempted to pick them up.
There was no sign of a trail leading from the old camp ground, and I
sent Pete and Richards to circle the bush and endeavor to locate one
that I knew was somewhere about, while I fished and Stanton and Duncan
prepared an early supper. A little later the two men returned,
unsuccessful in their quest. They had seen two or three trails, any of
which might be our trail. Of course but one of them _could_ be the
right one.
This report was both perplexing and annoying, for I did not wish to
follow for several days a wrong route and then discover the error when
much valuable time had been lost.
I therefore decided that we must be sure of our position before
proceeding, and early the following morning dispatched Richards and
Pete on a scouting expedition to a high hill some distance to the
northeast that they might, from that view-point, note the general
contour of the land and the location of any visible chain of lakes
leading to the northwest through which the Indian trail might pass, and
then endeavor to pick up the trail from one of these lakes, noting old
camping grounds and other signs. As a precaution, in case they were
detained over night each carried some tea and some erbswurst, a rifle,
a cup at his belt and a compass. When Pete took the rifle he held it
up meaningly and said, "Fresh meat to-night. Caribou," and I could see
that he was planning to make a hunt of it.
When they were gone, I took Easton with me and climbed another hill
nearer camp, that I might get a panoramic view of the valley in which
we were camped. From this vantage ground I could see, stretching off
to the northward, a chain of three or four small lakes which, I
concluded, though there was other water visible, undoubtedly marked our
course. Far to the northwest was a group of rugged, barren,
snow-capped mountains which were, perhaps, the "white hills," behind
which the Indians had told us lay Seal Lake. At our feet, sparkling in
the sunlight, spread the lake upon whose shores our tent, a little
white dot amongst the green trees, was pitched. A bit of smoke curled
up from our camp fire, where I knew Stanton and Duncan were baking
"squaw bread."
We returned to camp to await the arrival and report of Richards and
Pete, and occupied the afternoon in catching trout which, though more
plentiful than in the first lake, were very small.
Toward evening, when a stiff breeze blew in from the lake and cleared
the black flies and mosquitoes away. Easton took a canoe out,
stripped, and sprang into the water, while I undressed on shore and was
in the midst of a most refreshing bath when, suddenly, the wind died
away and our tormentors came upon us in clouds. It was a scramble to
get into our clothes again, but before I succeeded in hiding my
nakedness from them, I was pretty severely wounded.
It was scarcely six o'clock when Richards and Pete walked into camp and
proudly threw down some venison. Pete had kept his promise. On the
lookout at every step for game, he had espied an old stag, and,
together, he and Richards had stalked it, and it had received bullets
from both their rifles. I shall not say to which hunter belonged the
honor of killing the game. They were both very proud of it.
But best of all, they had found, to a certainty, the trail leading to
one of the chain of little lakes which Easton and I had seen, and these
lakes, they reported, took a course directly toward a larger lake,
which they had glimpsed. I decided that this must be the lake of which
the Indians at Northwest River had told us--Lake Nipishish (Little
Water). This was very gratifying intelligence, as Nipishish was said
to be nearly half way to Seal Lake, from where we had begun our portage
on the Nascaupee.
What a supper we had that night of fresh venison, and new "squaw
bread," hot from the pan!
In the morning we portaged our outfit two miles, and removed our camp
to the second one of the series of lakes which Easton and I had seen
from the hill, and the fourth lake after leaving the Nascaupee River.
The morning was fearfully hot, and we floundered through marshes with
heavy packs, bathed in perspiration, and fairly breathing flies and
mosquitoes. Not a breath of air stirred, and the humidity and heat
were awful. Stanton and Duncan remained to pitch the tent and bring up
some of our stuff that had been left at the second lake, while
Richards, Easton, Pete and I trudged three miles over the hills for the
caribou meat which had been cached at the place where the animal was
killed, Richards and Pete having brought with them only enough for two
or three meals.
The country here was rough and broken, with many great bowlders
scattered over the hilltops. When we reached the cache we were
ravenously hungry, and built a fire and had a very satisfying luncheon
of broiled venison steak and tea. We bad barely finished our meal when
heavy black clouds overcast the sky, and the wind and rain broke upon
us in the fury of a hurricane. With the coming of the storm the
temperature dropped fully forty degrees in half as many minutes, and in
our dripping wet garments we were soon chilled and miserable. We
hastened to cut the venison up and put it into packs, and with each a
load of it, started homeward. On the way I stopped with Pete to climb
a peak that I might have a view of the surrounding country and see the
large lake to the northward which he and Richards had reported the
evening before. The atmosphere was sufficiently clear by this time for
me to see it, and I was satisfied that it was undoubtedly Lake
Nipishish, as no other large lake had been mentioned by the Indians.
We hastened down the mountain and made our way through rain-soaked
bushes and trees that showered us with their load of water at every
step, and when at last we reached camp and I threw down my pack, I was
too weary to change my wet garments for dry ones, and was glad to lie
down, drenched as I was, to sleep until supper was ready.
None of our venison must be wasted. All that we could not use within
the next day or two must be "jerked," that is, dried, to keep it from
spoiling. To accomplish this we erected poles, like the poles of a
wigwam, and suspended the meat from them, cut in thin strips, and in
the center, between the poles, made a small, smoky fire to keep the
greenbottle flies away, that they might not "blow" the venison, as well
as to aid nature in the drying process.
All day on July seventh the rain poured down, a cold, northwest wind
blew, and no progress was made in drying our meat. There was nothing
to do but wait in the tent for the storm to clear.
When Pete went out to cook dinner I told him to make a little corn meal
porridge and let it go at that, but what a surprise he had for us when,
a little later, dripping wet and hands full of kettles, he pushed his
way into the tent! A steaming venison potpie, broiled venison steaks,
hot fried bread dough, stewed prunes for dessert and a kettle of hot
tea! All experienced campers in the north woods are familiar with the
fried bread dough. It is dough mixed as you would mix it for squaw
bread, but not quite so stiff, pulled out to the size of your frying
pan, very thin, and fried in swimming pork grease. In taste it
resembles doughnuts. Hubbard used to call it "French toast." Our young
men had never eaten it before, and Richards, taking one of the cakes,
asked Pete:
"What do you call this?"
"I don't know," answered Pete.
"Well," said Richards, with a mouthful of it, "I call it darn good."
"That's what we call him then," retorted Pete, "darn good."
And so the cakes were christened "darn goods," and always afterward we
referred to them by that name.
The forest fire which I have mentioned as having swept this country to
the shores of Grand Lake some thirty-odd years ago, had been
particularly destructive in this portion of the valley where we were
now encamped. The stark dead spruce trees, naked skeletons of the old
forest, stood all about, and that evening, when I stepped outside for a
look at the sky and weather, I was impressed with the dreariness of the
scene. The wind blew in gusts, driving the rain in sheets over the
face of the hills and through the spectral trees, finally dashing it in
bucketfuls against our tent.
The next forenoon, however, the sky cleared, and in the afternoon
Richards and I went ahead in one of the canoes to hunt the trail. We
followed the north shore of the lake to its end, then portaged twenty
yards across a narrow neck into another lake, and keeping near the
north shore of this lake also, continued until we came upon a creek of
considerable size running out of it and taking a southeasterly course.
Where the creek left the lake there was an old Indian fishing camp. It
was out of the question that our trail should follow the valley of this
creek, for it led directly away from our goal. We, therefore, returned
and explored a portion of the north shore of the lake, which was very
bare, bowlder strewn, and devoid of vegetation for the most part--even
moss.
Once we came upon a snow bank in a hollow, and cooled ourselves by
eating some of the snow. Our observations made it quite certain that
the trail left the northern side of the second lake through a
bowlder-strewn pass over the hills, though there were no visible signs
of it, and we climbed one of the hills in the hope of seeing lakes
beyond. There were none in sight. It was too late to continue our
search that day and we reluctantly returned to camp. Our failure was
rather discouraging because it meant a further loss of time, and I had
hoped that our route, until we reached Nipishish at least, would lie
straight and well defined before us.
Sunday was comfortably cool, with a good stiff breeze to drive away the
flies. I dispatched Richards, with Pete and Easton to accompany him,
to follow up our work of the evening before, and look into the pass
through the hills, while I remained behind with Stanton and Duncan and
kept the fire going under our venison.
I Had expected that Duncan, with his lifelong experience as a native
trapper and hunter in the Labrador interior, would be of great
assistance to us in locating the trail; but to my disappointment I
discovered soon after our start that he was far from good even in
following a trail when it was found, though he never got lost and could
always find his way back, in a straight line, to any given point.
The boys returned toward evening and reported that beyond the hills,
through the pass, lay a good-sized lake, and that some signs of a trail
were found leading to it. This was what I had hoped for.
Our meat was now sufficiently dried to pack, and, anxious to be on the
move again, I directed that on the morrow we should break camp and
cross the hills to the lakes beyond.