A SPOOKY CAMP
Ray had a feeling that they had narrowly escaped from the horrible fate
of being lost in a fog on Lake Superior. He had seen fogs in his native
province of Vermont, but this was his first experience with a fog such
as he had just seen. That a fog could come up so suddenly and could
almost change day into night was a revelation to the lad. But he
understood now why Ganawa had been so anxiously watching the sky for
signs of a change in the weather and why he had steered for the island
instead of for the mouth of the Agawa, which was about twelve miles
farther to the northeast, and where Ganawa would have had to hold a
true course over open water about ten miles wide.
“My sons,” remarked Ganawa, “I was afraid we should get lost if we
tried to reach the mainland even if we had used our little compass.
When a fog comes up, every wise man paddles as quickly as possible to
the nearest land.”
There was something spooky about the place where they had landed. They
had carried their tepee-skin and other things a few rods through the
dripping forest over very rough rocky ground and had laid them down in
an open grassy spot, where to the surprise of both Ray and Bruce, they
found two sets of tepee-poles already set up. But the fog had now
become so thick that, if Ray walked over to one side of the clearing,
he could not see the tepee-poles at the other side. He walked a few
rods along a game trail in search of dry punk wood, but in the dense
timber he had a feeling that the sun had set and that at any moment it
might grow pitch dark. With a feeling of fear he turned back toward
camp. He was puzzled when he came to a fork in the trail, which he had
not noticed in coming from the camp. He took the fork to his right and
followed it for a time, which seemed to him to be twice as long as he
had taken going away from the camp. But no open place and no
tepee-poles came in sight; on the contrary the timber grew more dense
and the trail began to lead up-hill. He stopped and called, “Hoh,
Bruce!” He listened for an answer but none came.
The blood rushed hot to his face. “I believe I am lost,” he thought. He
listened a moment and heard the sound of some one chopping wood, but
the sound came from the wrong direction, and Ray called lustily for
Bruce.
“Come back here, you youngster!” came the reply. “Can’t you get wet
enough without slashing around in the brush?”
When the badly scared boy returned to the camp site, Ganawa was just
putting the last touches on setting up the tepee. Bruce was hard at
work cutting wood. He had some dry spruce and balsam, but most of it
was green birch, and under a large piece of old dead birch-bark he had
gathered a pile of fairly dry sticks and fine twigs, which Ganawa would
use in starting the fire.
“My son,” Ganawa warned the flushed boy, “if you wander away from camp
in a fog, some night you will sleep in the wet bush.”
Then Ganawa started to make a fire. He took a piece of tinder and a
piece of flint between his left thumb and forefinger and with a sort of
steel ring held in his right hand, he struck a few sharp quick blows at
the edge of the flint. Ray was not sure that he had seen any sparks fly
off the flint, but the tinder had caught fire and began to give off a
little smoke. Ganawa placed it in a handful of dry moss, spruce needles
and very fine dry twigs and swung the whole over his head. The smoke
increased at once, and in a very short time a red, smoky flame burst
forth, and Ganawa put his little fire under the dry sticks and twigs
prepared for it. The fire started a little slowly, because none of the
material used was as dry as it would have been on a bright, sunny day.
However, in about ten minutes the campers had a bright cheerful blaze,
which only a heavy rain could have put out.
If one should camp on Montreal Island in a fog at the present time, he
would hear through the fog the deep roar of the whistle of steamers
headed for the canals at Sault Sainte Marie with iron ore or grain, and
of other steamers that have come up through the “Soo” Canals with coal
or merchandise from the east or from Europe. At the time of our story a
few very small sailboats belonging to French or English traders were
the only ships on Lake Superior larger than Indian canoes. Ganawa also
built a small fire in the center of the tepee, “to take the cold out of
it,” as he said. The fire on the outside he and Bruce built up until it
was quite big; and on several stumps around it they piled up the spruce
and balsam boughs, which were to serve for their beds.
“Wet boughs make a poor bed,” observed Ganawa. “We shall dry them
before we take them in.”
Ganawa was not in a talkative mood. Most of the time he sat and gazed
into the fire, or seemed to be listening to the songs of white-throats
and hermit-thrushes, which are not silenced in the North Country either
by fog or cold weather.
When Bruce finally ventured to ask, “What is my father thinking of so
long?” Ganawa replied: “I am thinking of your brother that sailed away
on the Big Lake, and I am also thinking of Hamogeesik. He is a bad man,
and I do not know where he has gone. He may have gone the same way that
we are going. Two winters ago, he went with a white man from Quebec to
Lake Manitowik and Lake Missinaibi to trap beaver and otter and marten.
When the streams ran free of ice Hamogeesik came back with many furs,
but the white man did not come back. Hamogeesik told that he had broken
through the ice on Lake Missinaibi. Some of the Indians believed the
story, but many of them did not believe it.”
It grew dark early, so pitchy, inky dark that Ray was afraid to go out
of sight of the camp-fire. He soon grew sleepy, rolled up in his
blankets inside the tepee, and slept soundly till morning. But for
Ganawa and Bruce the night was not so restful. For some time the white
lad was kept awake by the thumping of the rabbits, which were numerous
on the island. But several times during the night some larger animal
prowled about the tepee. It never uttered a sound, but Ganawa said it
moved through the brush like a wolf. “But I do not know why a wolf
should stay on this island during summer,” he added. “They cross over
on the ice in winter, but they leave this island and other islands
before the ice breaks up.”