THE BEAUTIES OF THE WILDERNESS--PORTAGES--PHILOSOPHY OF SETTLING DOWN--
AN ENORMOUS FOOTPRINT--SUPPER PROCURED, AND A BEAR-HUNT IN PROSPECT.
After paddling, and hauling, and lifting, and tearing, and wading, and
toiling, and struggling, for three weeks, our hero and his friends found
themselves deep in the heart of the unknown wilderness--unknown, at
least, to the civilised world, though not altogether unknown to the
trappers and the Red Indians of the Far West.
There is something inexpressibly romantic and captivating in the idea of
traversing those wild regions of this beautiful world of ours which have
never been visited by human beings, with the exception of a few
wandering savages who dwell therein.
So thought and felt young Marston one splendid afternoon, as he toiled
up to the summit of a grassy mound with a heavy pack on his shoulders.
Throwing down the pack, he seated himself upon it, wiped his heated brow
with the sleeve of his hunting-shirt, and gazed with delight upon the
noble landscape that lay spread out before him.
"Ha! _that's_ the sort o' thing--that's it!"--he exclaimed, nodding his
head, as if the rich and picturesque arrangement of wood and water had
been got up expressly for his benefit, and he were pleased to signify
his entire approval of it.
"That's just it," he continued after a short contemplative pause, "just
what I expected to find. Ain't I glad? eh?"
March certainly looked as if he was; but, being at that moment alone, no
one replied to his question or shared his enjoyment. After another
pause he resumed his audible meditations.
"Now, did ever any one see sich a place as this in all the wide 'arth?
That's what I want to know. Never! Just look at it now. There's miles
an' miles o' woods an' plains, an' lakes, an' rivers, wherever I choose
to look--all round me. And there are deer, too, lots of 'em, lookin'
quite tame, and no wonder, for I suppose the fut of man never rested
here before, except, maybe, the fut of a redskin now an' again. And
there's poplars, an' oaks, an' willows, as thick as they can grow."
March might have added that there were also elm, and sycamore, and ash,
and hickory, and walnut, and cotton-wood trees in abundance, with
numerous aspen groves, in the midst of which were lakelets margined with
reeds and harebells, and red willows, and wild roses, and chokeberries,
and prickly pears, and red and white currants. He might, we say, have
added all this, and a great deal more, with perfect truth; but he
didn't, for his knowledge of the names of such things was limited, so he
confined himself, like a wise youth, to the enumeration of those things
that he happened to be acquainted with.
"And," continued March, starting up and addressing his remark to a
hollow in the ground a few yards off, "there's grisly bars here, too,
for there's the futmark of one, as sure as I'm a white man!"
Most people would have been inclined to differ with March in regard to
his being a white man, for he was as brown as constant exposure in hot
weather could make him; but he referred to his blood rather than to his
skin, which was that of white parents.
The footprint which he had discovered was, indeed, that of a grisly
bear, and he examined it with more than usual interest, for, although
many of those ferocious denizens of the western woods had been already
seen, and a few shot by the trappers on their voyage to this point, none
had been seen so large as the monster whose footprint now attracted
Marston's attention. The print was eleven inches long, exclusive of the
claws, and seven inches broad.
While March was busily engaged in examining it, Black Gibault came
panting up the hill with a huge pack on his back.
"Ho! March, me garcon, vat you be find la?" cried the Canadian,
throwing down his pack and advancing. "A bar, Gibault; Caleb himself.
A regular big un, too. Just look here."
"Ah! oui, vraiment; dat am be one extinishin' vopper, sure 'nuff. Mais,
him's gone pass long ago, so you better come avay an' finish de
portage."
"Not I, lad," cried March gaily, as he flung himself upon the grassy
mound; "I'm goin' to admire this splendid country till I'm tired of it,
and leave you and the other fellows to do the work."
"Oh! ver' goot," cried Gibault, sitting down beside our hero, and
proceeding to fill his pipe, "I will 'mire de countray, too. Ha! it be
unmarkibly beautiful--specially when beholded troo one cloud of tabacca
smoke."
"Alas! Gibault, we'll have to move off sooner than we expected, for
there it comes."
The two friends leaped up simultaneously, and, seizing their packs,
hurried down the mound, entered the thick bushes, and vanished.
The object whose sudden appearance had occasioned this abrupt departure
would, in truth, have been somewhat singular, not to say alarming, in
aspect, to those who did not know its nature. At a distance it looked
like one of those horrible antediluvian monsters one reads of, with a
lank body, about thirty feet long. It was reddish-yellow in colour, and
came on at a slow, crawling pace, its back appearing occasionally above
the underwood. Presently its outline became more defined, and it turned
out to be a canoe instead of an antediluvian monster, with Big Waller
and Bounce acting the part of legs to it. Old Redhand the trapper and
Hawkswing the Indian walked alongside, ready to relieve their comrades
when they should grow tired--for a large canoe is a heavy load for two
men--or to assist them in unusually bad places, or to support them and
prevent accidents, should they chance to stumble.
"Have a care now, lad, at the last step," said Redhand, who walked a
little in advance.
"Yer help would be better than yer advice, old feller," replied Bounce,
as he stepped upon the ridge or mound which Marston and his companion
had just quitted. "Lend a hand; we'll take a spell here. I do believe
my shoulder's out o' joint. There, gently--that's it."
"Wall, I guess this _is_ Eden," cried Big Waller, gazing around him with
unfeigned delight. "Leastwise, if it ain't, it must be the very nixt
location to them there diggins of old Father Adam. Ain't it
splendiferous?"
Big Waller was an out-and-out Yankee trapper. It is a mistake to
suppose that all Yankees "guess" and "calculate," and talk through their
nose. There are many who don't, as well as many who do; but certain it
is that Big Waller possessed all of these peculiarities in an alarming
degree. Moreover, he was characteristically thin and tall and sallow.
Nevertheless, he was a hearty, good-natured fellow, not given to
boasting so much as most of his class, but much more given to the
performance of daring deeds. In addition to his other qualities, the
stout Yankee had a loud, thundering, melodious voice, which he was fond
of using, and tremendous activity of body, which he was fond of
exhibiting.
He was quite a contrast, in all respects, to his Indian companion,
Hawkswing, who, although about as tall, was not nearly so massive or
powerful. Like most North American Indians, he was grave and taciturn
in disposition; in other respects there was nothing striking about him.
He was clad, like his comrades, in a trapper's hunting-shirt and
leggings; but he scorned to use a cap of any kind, conceiving that his
thick, straight, black hair was a sufficient covering, as undoubtedly it
was. He was as courageous as most men; a fair average shot, and, when
occasion required, as lithe and agile as a panther; but he was not a
hero--few savages are. He possessed one good quality, however, beyond
his kinsmen--he preferred mercy to revenge, and did not gloat over the
idea of tearing the scalps off his enemies, and fringing his coat and
leggings therewith.
"'Tis a sweet spot," said Redhand to his comrades, who stood or reclined
in various attitudes around him. "Such a place as I've often thought of
casting anchor in for life."
"An' why don't ye, then?" inquired Waller. "If I was thinkin' o'
locating down anywhar', I guess I'd jine ye, old man. But I'm too fond
o' rovin' for that yet. I calc'late it'll be some years afore I come to
that pint. Why don't ye build a log hut, and enjoy yerself?"
"'Cause I've not just come to that point either," replied the old man
with a smile.
Redhand had passed his best days many years before. His form was spare,
and his silvery locks were thin; but his figure was still tall and
straight as a poplar, and the fire of youth still lingered in his
dark-blue eye. The most striking and attractive point about Redhand was
the extreme kindliness that beamed in his countenance. A long life in
the wilderness had wrinkled it; but every wrinkle tended, somehow, to
bring out the great characteristic of the man. Even his frown had
something kindly in it. The prevailing aspect was that of calm
serenity. Redhand spoke little, but he was an attentive listener, and,
although he never laughed loudly, he laughed often and heartily, in his
own way, at the sallies of his younger comrades. In youth he must have
been a strikingly handsome man. Even in old age he was a strong one.
"I'll tell ye what's my opinion now, boys, in regard to settlin' down,"
said Bounce, who, having filled and lighted his pipe, now found himself
in a position to state his views comfortably. "Ye see, settlin' down
may, in a gin'ral way, be said to be nonsense. In pint o' fact, there
ain't no sich a thing as settlin' down. When a feller sits down, why,
in a short bit, he's bound to rise up agin, and when he goes to bed, he
means for to get up next mornin'." (Here Bounce paused, drew several
whiffs, and rammed down the tobacco in his pipe with the end of his
little finger.) "Then, when a feller locates in a place, he's sure for
to be movin' about, more or less, as long as he's got a leg to stand on.
Now, what I say is, that when a man comes to talk o' settlin' down,
he's losin' heart for a wanderin' life among all the beautiful things o'
creation; an' when a man loses heart for the beautiful things o'
creation, he'll soon settle down for good and all. He's in a bad way,
he is, and oughtn't to encourage hisself in sich feelin's. I b'lieve
that to be the feelosophy o' the whole affair, and I don't b'lieve that
nobody o' common edication--I don't mean school edication, but backwoods
edication--would go for to think otherwise. Wot say you, Waller?"
"Sartinly not," replied the individual thus appealed to.
Big Waller had a deep reverence for the supposed wisdom of his friend
Bounce. He listened to his lucubrations with earnest attention at all
times, and, when he understood them, usually assented to all his friend
said. When Bounce became too profound for him, as was not infrequently
the case, he contented himself with nodding his head, as though to say,
"I'm with you in heart, lad, though not quite clear in my mind; but it's
all right, I'm quite sartin."
"Well, then," resumed Bounce, turning to Redhand, "what do _you_ think
o' them sentiments, old man?"
Redhand, who had been paying no attention whatever to these sentiments,
but, during the delivery of them, had been gazing wistfully out upon the
wide expanse of country before him, laid his hand on Bounce's shoulder,
and said in a low, earnest tone--
"It's a grand country! D'ye see the little clear spot yonder, on the
river bank, with the aspen grove behind it, an' the run of prairie on
the right, an' the little lake not a gun-shot off on the left? That's
the spot I've sometimes thought of locatin' on when my gun begins to
feel too heavy. There'll be cities there some day. Bricks and mortar
and stone 'll change its face--an' cornfields, an'--but not in our day,
lad, not in our day. The redskins and the bears 'll hold it as long as
we're above ground. Yes, I'd like to settle down there."
"Come, come, Redhand," said Bounce, "this sort o' thing 'll never do.
Why, you're as hale and hearty as the best on us. Wot on 'arth makes
you talk of settlin' down in that there fashion?"
"Ha!" exclaimed Waller energetically, "I guess if ye goes on in that
style ye'll turn into a riglar hiplecondrik--ain't that the word,
Bounce? I heer'd the minister say as it was the wust kind o' the blues.
What's _your_ opinion o' settlin' down, Hawkswing?"
To this question the Indian gravely replied in his own language (with
which the trappers were well acquainted), that, not having the remotest
idea of what they were talking about, he entertained no opinion in
regard to it whatever.
"Well, wotiver others may hold," remarked Bounce emphatically, "I'm
strong agin' settlin' down nowhar'."
"So am I, out an' out," said Waller.
"Dat be plain to the naked eye," observed Gibault, coming up at the
moment. "Surement you have settle down here for ever. Do you s'pose,
mes garcons, dat de canoe will carry _hisself_ over de portage? Voila!
vat is dat?"
Gibault pointed to the footprint of the grisly bear, as he spoke.
"It's a bar," remarked Bounce quietly.
"Caleb," added Waller, giving the name frequently applied to the grisly
bear by western hunters. "I calc'late it's nothin' new to see Caleb's
fut in the mud."
"Mais, it be new to see hims fut so big, you oogly Yankee," cried
Gibault, putting Waller's cap over his eyes, and running into the bush
to avoid the consequences.
At that moment a deer emerged from the bushes, about fifty yards from
the spot on which the trappers rested, and, plunging into the river,
made for the opposite bank.
"There's our supper," said Bounce, quietly lifting his rifle in a
leisurely way, and taking aim without rising from the spot on which he
sat or removing the pipe from his lips.
The sharp crack was followed by a convulsive heave on the part of the
deer, which fell over on its side and floated downstream.
Big Waller gave utterance to a roar of satisfaction, and, flinging his
pipe from him, bounded down the bank towards a point of rock, where he
knew, from the set of the current, the deer would be certain to be
stranded. Gibault, forgetting his recent piece of impertinence, darted
towards the same place, and both men reached it at the same instant.
Big Waller immediately lifted his little friend in his huge arms, and
tossed him into the centre of a thick soft bush, out of which he
scrambled in time to see his comrade catch the deer by the horns, as it
floated past, and drag it on shore.
"Hoh! I vill pay you off von time," cried Gibault, laughing, and
shaking his fist at Waller. Then, seizing the last bale of goods that
had not been carried across the portage, he ran away with it nimbly up
the bank of the stream.
Big Waller placed the deer on his shoulders with some difficulty, and
followed in the same direction.
On reaching the other end of the portage, they found the canoe reloaded
and in the water, and their comrades evincing symptoms of impatience.
"Come on, lads, come on," cried March, who seemed to be the most
impatient of them all. "We've seen Caleb! He's up the river, on this
side. Get in! He's sich a banger, oh!"
Before the sentence was well finished, all the men were in their places
except Black Gibault, who remained on the bank to shove off the canoe.
"Now, lad, get in," said Redhand, whose usually quiet eye appeared to
gleam at the near prospect of a combat with the fierce and much-dreaded
monster of the Far West.
"All right, mes garcons," replied Gibault; "hand me mine gun; I vill
valk on the bank, an' see vich vay hims go--so, adieu!"
With a powerful push, he sent the light craft into the stream, and,
turning on his heel, entered the woods.
The others at once commenced paddling up the river with energetic
strokes.
"He's a wild feller that," remarked Bounce, after they had proceeded
some distance and reached a part of the stream where the current was
less powerful. "I'd bet my rifle he's git the first shot at Caleb; I
only hope he'll not fall in with him till we git ashore, else it may go
hard with him."
"So it may," said Waller; "if it goes as hard wi' Gibault as it did wi'
my old comrade, Bob Swan, it'll be no fun, I guess."
"What happened to him?" asked March, who was ever open-eared for
stories.
"Oh, it was nothing very curious, but I guess it was `onconvanient,' as
them coons from Ireland says. Bob Swan went--he did--away right off
alone, all by hisself, to shoot a grisly with a old musket as wasn't fit
to fire powder, not to speak o' ball. He was sich a desprit feller, Bob
Swan was, that he cut after it without takin' time to see wot wos in the
gun. I follered him as fast as I could, hollerin' for him to stop and
see if he wos loaded; but I calc'late he was past stoppin'. Wall, he
comes up wi' the bar suddently, and the bar looks at him, and he looks
at it. Then he runs up, claps the gun to his shoulder, and pulls the
trigger; but it wos a rusty old lock, an' no fire came. There was fire
come from the bar's eyes, though, I _do_ guess! It ran at him, an' he
ran away. Of course Caleb soon came up, an' Bob primed as he ran an'
wheeled about, stuck the muzzle of the old musket right into Caleb's
mouth, and fired. He swallered the whole charge, that bar did, as if it
had been a glass o' grog, and didn't he cough some? Oh no! an' he
roared, too, jist like this--"
Big Waller, in the excitement of his narrative, was about to give a
vocal illustration, when Bounce suddenly extinguished him by clapping
his hand on his mouth.
"Hist! you wild buffalo," he said, "you'll frighten off all the bars
within ten miles of us, if you raise your horrable trumpet!"
"I do believe, I forgot," said the Yankee with a low chuckle, when his
mouth was released.
"Well, but what happened to Bob Swan?" inquired March eagerly.
"Wot happened? I guess the bar cotched him by the leg, an' smashed it
in three places, before you could wink, but, by good luck, I come up at
that moment, an' put a ball right through Caleb's brains. Bob got
better, but he never got the right use o' his leg after that. An' we
found that he'd fired a charge o' small shot down that bar's throat--he
had!"
"Hallo! look! is yon Caleb?" inquired March in a hoarse whisper, as he
pointed with his paddle to a distant point up the river, where a dark
object was seen moving on the bank.
"That's him," said Bounce. "Now then, do your best, an' we'll land on
the point just below him."
"That's sooner said than done," remarked Redhand quietly, "for there's
another portage between us and Caleb."
As the old man spoke, the canoe passed round a low point which had
hitherto shut out the view of the bed of the river from the travellers,
and the vision of a white, though not a high, waterfall burst upon their
sight, at the same moment that the gushing sound of water broke upon
their ears. At any other time the beauty of the scene would have drawn
forth warm, though perhaps quaint and pithy, remarks of admiration.
Wood and water were seen picturesquely mingled and diversified in
endless variety. Little islands studded the surface of the river, which
was so broad and calm at that place as to wear the appearance of a small
lake. At the upper end of this lake it narrowed abruptly, and here
occurred the fall, which glittered in the sun's bright rays like a
cascade of molten silver. The divers trees and shrubs, both on the
islets and on the mainland, presented in some places the rich cultivated
appearance of the plantations on a well-tended domain; but, in other
places, the fallen timber, the rank tangled vegetation, and the
beautiful wild flowers showed that man's hand had not yet destroyed the
wild beauty of the virgin wilderness. The sky above was bright and
blue, with a few thin feathery clouds resting motionless upon its vast
concave, and the air was so still that even the tremulous aspen leaves
were but slightly agitated, while the rest of the forest's drapery hung
perfectly motionless.
Complete silence would have reigned but for the mellow sound of the
distant fall and the sweet, plaintive cries of innumerable wildfowl that
flew hither and thither, or revelled in the security of their sedgy
homes. Flocks of wild geese passed in constant succession overhead, in
the form of acute angles, giving a few trumpet notes now and then, as if
to advertise their passage to the far north to the dwellers in the world
below. Bustling teal rose in groups of dozens or half-dozens as the red
canoe broke upon their astonished gaze, and sent them, with whistling
wings, up or down the river. A solitary northern diver put up his long
neck here and there to gaze for an instant inquisitively, and then sank,
as if for ever, into the calm water, to reappear long after in some
totally new and unexpected quarter. A napping duck or two, being
wellnigh run over by the canoe, took wing with a tremendous splutter and
a perfectly idiotical compound of a quack and a roar, while numerous
flocks of plover, which had evidently meant to lie still among the
sedges and hide while the canoe passed, sprang into the air at the
unwonted hullabaloo, and made off, with diverse shriek and whistle, as
fast as their wings could carry them. Besides these noisy denizens of
the wilderness, there were seen, in various places, cranes, and crows,
and magpies, and black terns, and turkey-buzzards, all of which were
more or less garrulous in expressing surprise at the unexpected
appearance of the trappers in their wild domain. And, just as the canoe
drew near to the place at the foot of the fall where they meant to land
and make the portage, a little cabri, or prong-horned antelope, leaped
out of the woods, intending, doubtless, to drink, caught sight of the
intruders, gave one short glance of unutterable amazement, and then
rebounded into the bush like an electrified indiarubber ball.
"Now, then," said Bounce as he leaped ashore, and held the canoe steady
while his comrades landed, "jist be cool, an' no hurry; make the
portage, launch the canoe atop o' the fall, sot off agin, an' then--
hurrah for that there grisly bar!"