THE SMOKE-HOUSE
“I do not know what made the dog mad,” said Ganawa, when they had
returned from the pool. “Perhaps he smelled a bear or a wolf, or a
moose came to the river to drink. Some dogs do not know enough to leave
a porcupine alone, and then they get mad when they smell one. Or it may
be that the dog smelled an Indian, although I do not know why a good
Indian should have run away when the dog came. If it had been a bear, I
think the dog would have held him at bay and would have done much
barking, and a young bear would have climbed a tree. If it had been a
moose, I think the dog would have followed his trail a long time,
perhaps all night. So I think it was either a wolf or an Indian. One
dog cannot fight a wolf, and an Indian might have gone down the river
in a canoe. But now, my sons, you must take care of the fish you
caught.”
The trout had all been cleaned in the evening, and Bruce had laid them
in a big basin of birch-bark and put just a very little salt on them.
Bruce had taken along about a peck of salt, because he knew that it is
hard for most white men to learn to like meat and fish without salt.
The lads had planned to smoke the fish, so that they would keep
indefinitely. Then they could take smoked fish on trips when they would
have no time to hunt or fish, or when they would have no luck with
hunting or fishing.
The lads proceeded to smoke the fish in a way which any campers or
fishermen may follow. It is a method which the Indians discovered long
ago and it is well known to many white campers and hunters.
Bruce drove some stout poles into the ground so they made a rectangle
about three feet wide and six feet long. Then he tied two slender green
poles to the uprights, one on each side of the rectangle.
Ray quickly cut a number of thin green sticks and laid them crosswise
on the poles which Bruce had tied to the uprights. When Ganawa saw what
the lads had done, he said, “My sons, you have made a good scaffold for
smoking the fish.”
“We shall make it better,” Bruce replied. “We shall make a little
smoke-house, so they will be smoked more evenly than on an open
scaffold. Go and get some large pieces of bark, Ray; any kind of bark
you can find.”
In a short time the lads had enclosed three sides of their smoke-house
with pieces of birch-bark and other bark. Then Bruce dug a shallow
trench in the ground, and in this he built a small fire of sticks and
chips. As soon as this fire had a good start he covered it with damp
birch punk, rotting birchwood, which he gathered from a dead birch that
had been lying on the ground for several years. The wood had rotted to
such an extent, as birch on the ground always does, that one could have
dug it out with a stout shovel.
The fish had all been split along the back, and Ray had carefully
spread them out on the frame above the fire, from which a thick smoke
now began to rise.
“Say, Bruce,” exclaimed Ray, “the thing begins to work like a
smoke-house on a New England farm. I guess we won’t starve if we can
catch enough fish or find game.”
The lads now covered the top of their smoke-house with birch-bark, and
partly closed the front with a piece of buckskin. After this they took
turns watching the fire, taking care that there was always enough fire
to make a good dense smoke. By this method, meat and fish are slowly
cooked and cured in such a way that they will keep for a long time,
even in warm weather, if they are protected from flies and other
insects.
Bruce and Ray smoked fish till dark, and then Bruce took the fish into
the tepee and let the fire go out.
“A hungry bear might steal that whole business,” Bruce remarked. “We
must take no chances like that.”
In the morning Bruce started the fire again, and about noon the fish
were declared well smoked and cured. The outside felt hard and dry and
the dark pink meat had been nicely browned. The fish not only looked
but smelled appetizing, so that the lads were sorely tempted to eat a
piece at once.
Ganawa had made a birch-bark tub and in this the lads stored their
smoked fish, and after carefully closing the tub with a piece of
canvas, they hung the tub up in the tepee, for in this way the fish
would keep indefinitely.
They had now time to explore the country several miles up the river,
searching for indications of a white man’s camp or a cache of fur.
“The cache or the camp,” said Ganawa, “will not be far from a lake or
stream. It may be on a very small stream, but you need not look for it
far from water. Both Indians and white men never make a camp more than
two or three hundred paces from water, and at most camps the distance
to water is much less.”
For about a week the three campers devoted their time to exploring the
wild country for some ten miles up-stream. Sometimes all three went as
one party, at other times Ganawa went in one direction and the two
white boys went in another direction, but neither of the white boys
ever went alone any great distance from camp, for Ganawa was always a
little afraid that the lads might get lost.
“You must remember, my sons,” he told them, “in what direction you went
from the river and from the tepee. If you can find the river, you can
find the tepee. If you get lost you must not be scared and begin to
run, but you must camp, build a fire that will make a big smoke and
then you must wait till I have time to find you.”
On every trip they carried a piece of smoked fish, a small ax, steel,
flint, and tinder; and hooks and fish-lines. They also never went
without Bruce’s small compass. About the use of the compass Ganawa had
laughingly cautioned them on one point, saying: “My sons, I have seen
several white men get lost with their compass. The compass is wise and
can always tell you where the north star is and where the sun is at
noon, but it cannot tell you where your tepee is; so you must always
remember in what direction and about how far you went from your tepee.”
In this manner they examined every creek, lake, and pond that might
have tempted trappers and traders to camp. They found several places
where at some time Indians had camped, but in all their search they
discovered just one spot which Ganawa pronounced to have been a white
man’s camp. It was close to the river at the mouth of a cold-spring
stream.
“The men who camped here cut big wood and built a big fire,” explained
Ganawa. “Indians do not cut big wood and do not build a big fire. The
dry balsam boughs of their bed show us that there were two men, and
they made camp about twelve moons ago after the balsam-trees had begun
to make a new growth. They camped here more than one night, because
they cut and burnt a good deal of wood.”
Bruce and Ray tried hard to read more from the signs of the camp. In
what direction were the men travelling? With what object did they come
to this wild part of the continent? The lads even looked with great
care for some written message, but they found absolutely nothing to
give them more information than Ganawa had read from the signs of the
camp.
“I wish something would happen,” Ray said one evening as he and Bruce
were returning tired and hungry from one of their fruitless exploring
trips. “It isn’t much fun to be eaten up by the black flies in the
brush,” and a few days later something did happen.