Young Van Cortlandt, six feet two in his socks and thirty-four inches
around the chest, was, as Rolf long afterward said, “awful good raw
material, but awful raw.” Two years out of college, half of which had
been spent at the law, had done little but launch him as a physical
weakling and a social star. But his mental make-up was more than good;
it was of large promise. He lacked neither courage nor sense, and the
course he now followed was surely the best for man-making.
Rolf never realized how much a farmer-woodman-canoeman-hunter-camper had
to know, until now he met a man who did not know anything, nor dreamed
how many wrong ways there were of doing a job, till he saw his new
companion try it.
There is no single simple thing that is a more complete measure of one's
woodcraft than the lighting of a fire. There are a dozen good ways and
a thousand wrong ones. A man who can light thirty fires on thirty
successive days with thirty matches or thirty sparks from flint and
steel is a graduated woodman, for the feat presupposes experience of
many years and the skill that belongs to a winner.
When Quonab and Rolf came back from taking each a load over the first
little portage, they found Van Cortlandt getting ready for a fire with a
great, solid pile of small logs, most of them wet and green. He knew how
to use flint and steel, because that was the established household way
of the times. Since childhood had he lighted the candle at home by this
primitive means. When his pile of soggy logs was ready, he struck his
flint, caught a spark on the tinder that is always kept on hand, blew
it to a flame, thrust in between two of the wet logs, waited for all to
blaze up, and wondered why the tiny blaze went out at once, no matter
how often he tried.
When the others came back, Van Cortlandt remarked: “It doesn't seem to
burn.” The Indian turned away in silent contempt. Rolf had hard work to
keep the forms of respect, until the thought came: “I suppose I looked
just as big a fool in his world at Albany.”
“See,” said he, “green wood and wet wood won't do, but yonder is some
birch bark and there's a pine root.” He took his axe and cut a few
sticks from the root, then used his knife to make a sliver-fuzz of each;
one piece, so resinous that it would not whittle, he smashed with
the back of the axe into a lot of matchwood. With a handful of finely
shredded birch bark he was now quite ready. A crack of the flint a
blowing of the spark caught on the tinder from the box, a little flame
that at once was magnified by the birch bark, and in a minute the pine
splinters made a sputtering fire. Quonab did not even pay Van Cortlandt
the compliment of using one of his logs. He cut a growing poplar, built
a fireplace of the green logs around the blaze that Rolf had made, and
the meal was ready in a few minutes.
Van Cortlandt was not a fool; merely it was all new to him. But his
attention was directed to fire-making now, and long before they reached
their cabin he had learned this, the first of the woodman's arts--he
could lay and light a fire. And when, weeks later, he not only made the
flint fire, but learned in emergency to make the rubbing stick spark,
his cup of joy was full. He felt he was learning.
Determined to be in everything, now he paddled all day; at first with
vigour, then mechanically, at last feebly and painfully. Late in the
afternoon they made the first long portage; it was a quarter mile. Rolf
took a hundred pounds, Quonab half as much more, Van Cortlandt tottered
slowly behind with his pill-kit and his paddle. That night, on his ample
mattress, he slept the sleep of utter exhaustion. Next day he did little
and said nothing. It came on to rain; he raised a huge umbrella and
crouched under it till the storm was over. But the third day he began to
show signs of new life, and before they reached the Schroon's mouth, on
the fifth day, his young frame was already responding to the elixir of
the hills.
It was very clear that they could not take half of the stuff that they
had cached at the Schroon's mouth, so that a new adjustment was needed
and still a cache to await another trip.
That night as they sat by their sixth camp fire, Van Cortlandt pondered
over the recent days, and they seemed many since he had left home.
He felt much older and stronger. He felt not only less strange, but
positively intimate with the life, the river, the canoe, and his
comrades; and, pleased with his winnings, he laid his hand on Skookum,
slumbering near, only to arouse in response a savage growl, as that
important animal arose and moved to the other side of the fire. Never
did small dog give tall man a more deliberate snub. “You can't do that
with Skookum; you must wait till he's ready,” said Rolf.
The journey up the Hudson with its “mean” waters and its “carries” was
much as before. Then they came to the eagle's nest and the easy waters
of Jesup's River, and without important incident they landed at the
cabin. The feeling of “home again” spread over the camp and every one
was gay.