A PUZZLE
Thus far the three travellers had enjoyed a long spell of that perfect
fair weather, which during some seasons is common in the North Country,
while at other seasons summer comes near missing the great wilderness
which lies between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay.
By the time Ganawa and the lads had each finished a pink-fleshed
broiled trout for supper the western sky was overcast and they could
see the reflection of distant lightning on the far-away clouds,
although above them the stars were shining, and a westerly wind soughed
somewhat uncannily through the tops of spruces and birches and played
about the crowns of old white pines which far overtopped the dense
mixed forest of spruce, birch, balsam, fir, and white cedar, which
campers and fishermen may find over much of the great North Shore
country to this day.
“My father,” Ray had asked, “why are there only a few big pines in the
forest?”
Ganawa thought a few moments before he answered. “I cannot tell you, my
son. As long as I remember, and during the time of my father, this was
always a country of a few big pine-trees, but south of the Big Lake,
where there was for a long time the country of the Chippewas, there are
large forests of very big pine-trees.”
The question which Ray asked of Ganawa is somewhat of a puzzle even to
the scientific foresters and naturalists of to-day. If one asks the
oldest present-day Indians for information, he receives about the same
answer which Ganawa gave to Ray. As long as the oldest of them
remembers and far back into the time of their grandfathers, isolated
giant white pines have towered over the other forest trees that do not
grow to the size of giants.
In some regions, as those in the poplar forests of the Big Fork country
in Minnesota, and in the Itasca Forest, the big pines are probably the
only trees that survived a destructive fire between seventy-five or a
hundred years ago. Of the time of these fires neither white men nor
Indians have now any definite recollection, but unfortunately forest
fires have not been rare in this great region of variable rainfall and
much wind.
North of Lake Superior and in the Michipicoten country, the big pines
may really tell another story. Perhaps they are an advance guard in the
northward spread of the forest trees, after all that vast region had
been covered by ice. Some of these big white pines are very old. They
have been slow growers. Three hundred narrow rings of growth are not
rare, and if one could carefully examine the rings close to the ground
he might find four hundred. These rings mean that the trees are between
three hundred and four hundred years old. There is no doubt that many
of these lone giants were struggling seedlings or even lustily growing
youths when John Smith was saved by Pocahontas and when the Pilgrims
landed on the coast of Massachusetts. Careful investigation might even
show that some of these lone sentinels were already beginning to reach
up to the sunlight when Columbus landed on San Salvador.
It may be that the red squirrels retarded the spread of the white pines
northward. In regions, where these pines are not numerous, the
squirrels are likely to strip every cone and eat practically every
seed.
Ganawa knew of this habit of the red squirrels and he also told Ray
that perhaps the winters were too long north of the Big Lake. “About
thirty leagues farther north,” he told the lads, “begins the great
forest of the spruce, and no white pines grow there, but only
spruce-trees; and where the land is high and sandy, the jack-pine
grows, the pine that keeps its little crooked cones for many years. And
there is only one other tree that you would find plentiful, if you
would paddle your canoe down one of the rivers which flow into the cold
salt water bay; that tree is the poplar, whose leaves whisper and talk
in every little wind. The poplars grow on good soil near the rivers,
where a fire has killed the other trees.”
By this time Ray was glad to slip away into his blankets. A small fire
was burning in the tepee to keep the place dry and warm and also to
prevent any mosquitoes from coming in at the top; for almost every year
through June and July the mosquitoes are a fearful pest through the
whole Great Lakes region, and they are often worse north of the lakes
than south of them.
Bruce and Ganawa sat for an hour or more at the camp-fire, which Bruce
kept supplied with green birch logs, while they talked over the events
of the day and discussed plans for finding a clue to the whereabouts of
Jack Dutton.
“We must look sharp along the river for signs of a white man’s camp,”
said Ganawa, “and if we do not find any, then we must go to another
river or to some lakes where the hunting is good for fur animals. And
we may find some Indians that can tell us where a white man made a
camp, but this country is very big and very few Indians live in it, and
only few of them travel through the region on their way to the English
traders who live far to the north on the shore of the salt water.”
By this time the storm had come up from the west, not with the violence
that often accompanies rainstorms on the plains and along the Missouri,
but quietly, with almost no wind. Bruce poured water on the camp-fire
and for a short time he stood in the darkness enjoying the view of the
hills and the wild forest as it was illumined from time to time by the
lightning that played back and forth on the clouds, and he listened to
the thunder which rumbled and crashed and echoed from hill to hill, and
it seemed as if at times the very rocks were trembling. Then a steady
roaring noise began, and Bruce wondered what it was, as it seemed to be
approaching rapidly. It was a heavy rain moving eastward without any
wind, and when the first big drops began to play on the tepee, Bruce
slipped inside and carefully closed the tepee flap behind him.
Ray was sound asleep, and Ganawa, who had experienced many storms in a
wild forest, also seemed to be asleep. But Bruce lay awake for some
time listening to the play of the rain on the tepee and to its strange
music on the river and in the trees, a music which people who always
live in cities and white men’s houses never hear. Thus wondering and
half dreaming about the vast uninhabited region, the big trout in the
pool, and the strange unknown man or beast which had made the dog so
madly excited, Bruce also fell asleep.
When Ray went to bed the dog had also curled up in his place and the
two had been asleep now for several hours. To rain, thunder, and wind,
Tawny paid no attention; they were sounds that meant nothing to him. In
the morning the wild forest appeared in all its summer glory under a
clear blue sky. White-throats were whistling, the song of the
hermit-thrushes rang from the thickets with its peculiar ecstasy, and
the bumblebees were at work among the white flowers of the wild
raspberries.
After the brush had dried off, the three campers went down to examine
the trail below the big pool; but if there had been any tracks or
marks, the heavy rain had obliterated them all. Tawny sniffed at the
ground here and there, but found nothing to excite him. However, he
seemed to know what the investigation was about, for again and again he
looked at his human companions with a funny quizzical expression, as if
he would say: “This is the place where he was last night. If you will
just tell me where he is now, I will go after him.”