A MYSTERY
When the three campers had explored the shore of Lake Anjigami, they
decided to extend their search to a smaller lake now called Pickerel
Lake, which is connected with Anjigami by a short channel. This latter
lake is crescent-shaped, and at its western end Bruce discovered signs
of a camp, which had been made by the same men that had camped near the
outlet of Anjigami. “How do you know that they were the same men?” Ray
asked. “You are just guessing at it, Bruce.”
“No, I am not guessing,” replied Bruce. “Come here, I shall convince
you. Look, the ax that made this cut had two nicks in its blade. The
nick marks here are exactly the same as those we found on Anjigami.”
“I’m convinced,” Ray admitted. “Bruce, you are a real scout.”
Ganawa agreed with Bruce as to the identity of the campers on the two
lakes. “The two camps were both made about twelve moons ago,” he
asserted, “and they were made by two white men.”
“And I believe,” Bruce added eagerly, “these two camps were made by
Jack Dutton and his companion. And I think they were doing what we are
doing; they were exploring the lake and looking for a good place for a
winter camp. But why didn’t they camp where we are camping? It is the
best place on the lake. Perhaps they camped some distance back from the
lake in the brush for some reasons of their own.”
“Indians always camp near water,” remarked Ganawa with a smile, “but
white men sometimes camp in strange places.”
“If these men did not lose their lives,” asserted Bruce, “they spent
the winter within ten miles of our camp. The season was too far
advanced and travelling in this country is too difficult for them to go
far before they made their winter camp. Perhaps they wanted to find
both a good camp and a good hiding-place.”
“From whom should they want to hide?” asked Ray.
“I don’t know,” admitted Bruce. “Their action is a puzzle to me.”
“I tell you something else that is a puzzle to me,” Ray said in a
half-whisper, when he and Bruce were alone. “Who was that fellow that
you pretty nearly chased over the big falls? And why was he snooping
around after us? Maybe he will come again. Believe me, Bruce, if I did
not have the dog you would not get me to stay alone in camp for one
hour. Maybe that fellow isn’t an Indian; maybe he is one of the evil
spirits that Ganawa tells us about.”
“Ray, don’t you know that the belief in evil spirits is just an Indian
superstition? It is time I should get you back to Vermont and send you
to school. The idea of your believing in evil spirits!”
“But why doesn’t Ganawa tell us who the fellow was, and why he was
following us? I almost wish you had chased him over the falls. I am
afraid of him.”
Ganawa and the boys searched the whole shore of Anjigami once more.
They traced every small stream entering the lake some distance back
into the timber, and they even followed several game trails that led
away from the lake. It was all in vain; they found no other clue. If
those two men had planned to vanish without leaving a sign, they had
completely succeeded.
Some time ago Ganawa had prepared the frames for three pairs of
snowshoes, using for this purpose the wood of young black-ash trees he
had found near their last camp. He had also prepared enough rawhide
strings for the web, and all three of the campers now spent a few days
finishing the work. “They are not very good snowshoes,” Ganawa
admitted, “but they will last through the winter.”
About the first of November the weather turned cold. Ice began to form
along the shore of the lake, and small lakes and beaver ponds were
entirely covered with their ice.
“My sons, to-day we must go and catch some more beavers,” said Ganawa
one morning. “Winter has begun and we shall soon need warm mittens and
caps, or we cannot leave the camp in cold weather.”
When they arrived at the pond, Ganawa asked the boys to walk with him
as quietly as possible around the edge of the pond. “We must learn
where their washes are,” he told the lads, “before we make any noise at
their houses.”
Neither of the lads knew what beaver “washes” are, but they soon
learned that this is the name used by Indians and white trappers for
the burrows which the beavers excavate in the banks of their ponds. The
pond was a large one and the hunters found half a dozen washes.
“Now, my sons,” said Ganawa after they had explored the whole pond,
“each of you pick up a good stick and then we shall go to the two
beaver houses.”
“Make a big noise,” he told the lads at the first house. “Strike the
roofs with your sticks and make a big yell, then the beavers will think
we are going to break into their house.”
Ganawa had scarcely finished his directions when down came three clubs
on the pole-and-mud roof of the beaver house, and the boys uttered such
piercing yells that Ganawa laughed aloud and said, “My sons, you can
yell like Sioux warriors. You almost scared me.”
The beating and the yells certainly scared the beavers. Eight or ten of
them, big ones and little ones, dived out of the house and swam for the
washes. “There they go! There they go!” cried Ray, and he ran after
them on the clear ice.
The same process was repeated at the second beaver house, and Ray
became so excited at the beaver hunt that he had a narrow escape from
breaking through the thin ice near the house.
The lad wondered how they were going to get the beavers out of the
washes. “We have no traps,” he thought, “and no hooks or snares.”
When the hunters reached the first wash, they knew at once that one or
more beavers had taken refuge in this burrow, because the water which
had been perfectly clear a short time ago was now roiled. Ganawa broke
the ice with his hatchet and pushed a pole under the bank to find out
how far back the beavers were, and with a paddle, which he had brought
along, he dug a hole into the cavity near the end where the beavers
were hidden. Then, to the great surprise of both lads, he lay down flat
on the ground, and before the lads realized what was happening, he had
reached into the wash and had flipped out three beavers, which Tawny
caught and killed as quickly as a good terrier disposes of rats.
“An Indian surely knows how to do and get things in the woods,”
exclaimed Ray. “Don’t they ever bite you?”
“Yes, my son, they bite,” replied Ganawa laughing, “if you give them
time. But this is the way our fathers always caught beavers before the
white traders brought us iron traps.”
By opening two other washes, the hunters caught a total of eight
beavers, but some of them were small, being the young of the previous
spring. Ganawa said they had now enough beaver skins so he could make a
cap and some warm mittens for each of them.
“After the snow has come, I think we can find a moose to furnish us
meat during the winter. If we had to live on beaver all winter, we
should have to catch some more now, for when the ice gets thick and the
ground is frozen, we cannot catch them in their washes.”
During the week that the beaver skins were drying and were being made
up into caps and mittens, the boys tried fishing through the ice, but
they had very little luck, because pickerel, pike, and lake trout
seldom pay any attention to dead bait, and the boys could find no
minnows, although they had made a crude dip-net out of a piece of gunny
sack.
A few days later there was a light snowfall, and the three campers
began to look for moose tracks. However, there seemed to be more wolves
in the country than moose; for, almost every night, they heard wolves
howl and they found wolf tracks within a few rods of their camp.