Science and Superstition
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.
Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons
excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot
Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally
observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle,
at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she
and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a youth
who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering in the
neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome addition
to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid recovery
she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of the forest
about her home. But finally, after many weeks, the uncle decides,
because of reasons which will be known later, that it would be better
for Margot if Adrian left them. Accordingly, he puts the matter before
the young man, who, although reluctant to leave his new friends,
volunteers to go. Under the guidance of Pierre Ricord, a young Indian,
the lad sets out for the nearest settlement. The journey for the most
part is made by water, and while attempting to shoot the rapids of the
stream which they have been following their canoe is dashed against a
rock and both occupants are thrown into the seething whirlpool.
For an instant Adrian closed his eyes that he might not see the
inevitable end. But--was it inevitable? At the logging camp he had
heard of just such accidents as this and not all of them were fatal.
The water in its whirling sometimes tossed that which it had caught
outward to safety.
He flung himself prone and extended the pole. Pierre’s body was making
another circuit of that horrible pit, and when--if--should it? The
drowning boy’s head was under the current, but his legs swung round
upon its surface, faster and faster, as they drew nearer the centre.
Then--a marvel! The long pole was thrust under the invisible arms,
which closed upon it as a vise.
“Hold! hold! I’ll pull you out!”
But for the hard labor of the past few weeks, Adrian’s muscles could
not have stood the strain. Yet they did, and as he drew the nearly
senseless Pierre upon the rock beside himself, his soul went up in such
glad thanksgiving as he had never known or might know again. A life
saved. That was worth all things.
For an hour they lay there, resting, recovering; then Pierre himself
stood up to see what chance there was for a fuller deliverance. He was
a very sober and altered Pierre, and his drenched clothing added to the
forlornness of his appearance.
“Nothing left but--us. Came nigh bein’ only you. Say, Adrian, I
sha--shan’t forget it.”
“How are we going to get ashore?”
“’Tisn’t much harder ’n Margot’s stepping-stones. Done them times
enough.”
Again Adrian was grateful for his forest experience; but he asked with
some anxiety:
“Suppose you are strong enough to do it?”
“Isn’t any supposin’ about it. Got to. Might as well died in the pool
as starve on this rock.”
Adrian didn’t see that there was much better than starvation before
them, even if they did reach shore, but he kept his fear to himself.
Besides, it was not probable that they had been saved from the flood to
perish in the forest. They would better look at the bright side of the
situation, if they hoped to find such.
“I can jump them.”
“So can I.”
“Don’t let go that pole. I mean to keep that as long as I live--’less
you want it yourself. If you do--”
“No, Pierre. It belongs to you, and doubly now. Which should go
first--you or I?”
“Draw lots. If that one falls in, the other must fish him out. Only we
won’t try it on this side, by the pool.”
They carefully surveyed the crossing, almost as dangerous an affair as
shooting the rapids had been. Yet, as Pierre had said, they “had to.”
Adrian picked a bit of floating weed that had swept within his reach
and broke it into unequal portions. The shortest bit fell to him, and
with as cheerful a “Here goes!” as he could muster he sprang for the
next stone. He made it more easily than he had hoped, and saw that
his best chance lay in looking straight ahead to the next landing
point--and the next--never down at the swirling river.
“Landed. Come!”
Pierre was heavier but more practiced than his mate, and in a few
seconds the two stood together on the shore, regarding the ruins of
their boat and thinking of what they would not have for supper.
All at once Pierre’s eye brightened.
“Say! there’s been a camp here. Not so long ago, either. See that
barrel in the brush? There’s an old birch shed yonder. Hurrah!”
They did not linger, though Adrian kept hoping that something from
their lost outfit might be tossed outward toward them, even as Pierre
had been; but nothing came in sight, and he reached the dilapidated
shed only a few feet behind the other.
“There’s a bed left still, but not such a soft one. And there’s pork in
that barrel. Wonder the hedgehogs haven’t found it.”
But as Pierre thrust his nose into the depths of the cask he understood
the reason of its safety.
“Whew! even a porkypine wouldn’t touch that. Never mind. Reckon our
boots’ll need greasing after that ducking, or mine will, and it’ll
answer. Anything under the shed?”
“Don’t see anything. Wait. Yes, I do. A canvas bag hung up high. Must
have been forgotten when the campers left, for they took everything
else. Clean sweep. Hurrah! it’s beans!”
“Good! Beans are good fodder for hungry cattle.”
“How can you eat such hard things? Should think they’d been resurrected
from the pyramids.”
“Well, I don’t know ‘pyramids,’ but I do know beans, and how to cook
them. Fall to. Let’s get a fire. I’m near froze.”
“Fire? Can you make one?”
“I can try and--I’ve got to. When needs must, you know.”
Adrian hastily collected some dry twigs and decaying chips and heaped
them in the sunniest place, but for this was promptly reprimanded by
the shivering Pierre.
“Don’t you know anything at all? Wood won’t light, nor burn after
’tis lighted, in the sunshine. Stick up something to shade the stuff,
whilst--”
He illustrated what he did not further say by carefully selecting some
hard stones and briskly rubbing them together. A faint spark resulted
and a thistledown caught the spark. To the thistledown he held a dried
grass blade and another. By this small beginning they had soon a tiny
blaze and very soon a comforting fire.
When they were partially dried and rested, said Pierre:
“Now, fetch on your beans. While they’re cooking, we’ll take account of
what is left.”
Adrian brought the bag, refraining from any questions this time. He
was wondering and watchful. Pierre’s misadventures were developing
unsuspected resources, and the spirits of both lads rose again to the
normal.
“You’re so fond of splitting birch for pictures, split me some now for
a bucket, while I sharpen this knife again. Lucky for me, my pocket
buttoned, else it would have gone to the bottom of that pool. Got
yours?”
“Yes. I didn’t fall in, you know.”
“Then I don’t ask odds of anybody. I’d rather have a good ax, but when
I can’t get my rather I take the next best thing.”
Adrian procured the strips of birch, which grows so plentifully to hand
in all that woodland, and when Pierre had trimmed it into the desired
shape he deftly rolled it and tied it with stout rootlets, and behold!
there was a shapely sort of kettle, with a twig for a handle. But of
what use it might be the city lad had yet to learn.
Pierre filled the affair with water and put into it a good handful of
the beans. Then he fixed a crotched stick over his fire and hung the
birch kettle upon it.
“Oh! don’t waste them. I know. I saw Angelique soak them, as they did
at camp. I know, now. If we can’t cook them we can make them swell up
in water, and starving men can exist on such food till they reach a
settlement. Of course, we’ll start as soon as you’re all right.”
“We’ll start when we’re ready. That’s after we’ve had something to eat
and made our new canoe. Never struck a spot where there was likelier
birches. ’Twon’t be the first one I’ve built or seen built. Say! seems
as if that God that Margot is always saying takes care of folks must
have had a hand in this. Don’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” answered Adrian, reverently. Surely, Pierre was a
changed and better lad.
Then his eyes rested on the wooden dinner-pot, and to his astonishment
it was not burning, but hung steadily in its place and the water in
it was already beginning to simmer. Above the water-line the bark
shriveled and scorched slightly, but Pierre looked out for this and
with a scoop made from a leaf replenished the water as it steamed away.
The beans, too, were swelling and gave every promise of cooking--in
due course of time. Meanwhile, the cook rolled himself over and about
in the warmth of the fire till his clothes were dry and all the cold
had left his body. Also, he had observed Adrian’s surprise with a
pardonable pride.
“Lose an Indian in the woods and he’s as rich as a lord. It’s the
Indian in me coming out now.”
“It’s an extra sense. Divination, instinct--something better than
education.”
“What the master calls ‘woodcraft.’ Yes. Wonder how he is, and all of
them? Say, what do you think I thought about when I was whirling round
that pool, before I didn’t think of anything?”
“Your sins, I suppose. That’s what I’ve heard comes to a drowning man.”
“Shucks! Saw the mére’s face when she broke that glass. Fact. Though
I wasn’t there at the time. And one thing more; saw that ridiculous
Xanthippé, looking like she’s never done a thing but warble. Oh, my!
how I do wish Margot’d sell her.”
“Shall I help you get birch for the canoe now? I begin to believe you
can do even that, you are so clever.”
This praise was sweet in Pierre’s vain ears and had the result which
Adrian desired, of diverting the talk from their island friends. In
their present situation, hopeful as the other pretended to find it, he
felt it best for his own peace of mind not to recall loved and absent
faces.
They went to work with a will, and will it was that helped them;
else with the poor tools at hand they had never accomplished their
undertaking. Indeed, it was a labor of considerable time. Not only was
that first meal of boiled beans cooked and eaten, but several more of
the same sort followed. To vary these, Pierre baked some, in the same
method as he had boiled them, or else in the ashes of their fire. He
even fashioned a sort of hook from a coat button, and with cedar roots
for a line, caught a fish now and then. But they craved the seasoning
of salt, and even the dessert of blueberries which nature provided
them could not satisfy this longing, which grew almost intolerable to
Adrian’s civilized palate.
“Queer, isn’t it? When I was at that lumber camp I nearly died because
all the meat, or nearly all, was so salt. Got so I couldn’t eat
anything, hardly. Now, just because I haven’t salt I can’t eat, either.”
“Indians not that way. Indians eat one thing same’s another. Indian
just wants to live; don’t care about the rest. Indian never eats too
much. I’m all Indian now.”
Adrian opened his eyes to their widest, then threw himself back and
laughed till the tears came.
“Pierre, Pierre! Would you had been ‘all Indian’ when you tackled
Angelique’s fried chicken. Um-m! I can taste it now.”
But at length the new canoe was ready. They had put as few ribs into
it as would suffice to hold it in shape, and Pierre had carefully sewn
it with the roots of the black cedar, which serves the woodsman for so
many purposes where thread or twine is needed. They had made a paddle
and a pole as well as they could with their knives, and, having nothing
to pack except themselves and their small remnant of beans, made their
last camp-fire at that spot and lay down to sleep.
But the dreams of both were troubled; and in the night Adrian rose
and went to add wood to the fire. It had died down to coals, but his
attention was caught by a ring of white light upon the ashes, wholly
distinct from the red embers.
“What’s that?”
In a moment he had answered his own question. It was the phosphorescent
glow from the inner bark of a half-burned log, and further away he
saw another portion of the same log making a ghostly radiance on the
surrounding ground.
“Oh! I wouldn’t have missed that for anything. Mr. Dutton told me of
beautiful sights he had witnessed and of the strange will-o’-the-wisps
that abound in the forest. I’ll gather some of the chips.”
He did so, and they made a fairy-like radiance over his palm; but
while he was intently studying them, he felt his hand rudely knocked
up, so that the bits of wood flew out of it.
“Pierre, stop that!”
“Don’t you know what that is? A warning--a sign--an omen. Oh! if I had
never come upon this trip!”
“You foolish fellow! Just as I thought you were beginning to get sense.
Nothing in the world but decayed bark and chemical--”
Pierre stopped his ears.
“I was dreaming of the mére. She came with her apron to her eyes and
her clothes in tatters. She was scolding--”
“Perfectly natural.”
“And begging me--”
“Not to eat so many half-baked beans for supper.”
“There’s something wrong at the island. I saw the cabin all dark. I saw
Margot’s eyes red with weeping.”
“No doubt, Tom has been into fresh mischief and your mother has
punished him.”
Pierre ignored these flippant interruptions, but rehearsed his dismal
visions till Adrian lost patience and pushed him aside.
“Go, bring an armful of fresh wood: some that isn’t phosphorescent, if
you prefer. That’ll wake you up and drive the megrims out of your mind.”
“’Tis neither of them things. ’Tis a warning. They were all painted
with black, and all the Hollow creatures were painted, too. ’Tis a
warning. I shall see death before I am--”
Even while he maundered on in this strain, he was unconsciously obeying
the command to fetch wood, and moved toward a pile left ready. Now, in
raking this together, Adrian had, also, swept that spot of ground clean
and exposed; and what neither had observed in the twilight was plainly
revealed by the glow and shadows cast by the fire.
This was a low, carefully-made mound that, in shape and significance,
could be confounded with no other sort of mound, wherever met. Both
recognized it at once, and even upon Adrian the shock was painful; but
its effect upon superstitious Pierre was far greater. With a shriek
that startled the silence of the forest he flung himself headlong.