DOLPH MEETS SOMETHING
After they broke camp on the following morning, the three boys looked
back to the spot where the tent had lately been pitched, and exchanged
remarks concerning the strange happenings of the night.
“One thing I’m glad for?” remarked Dolph; “that storm concluded it
didn’t have a call in this direction. Thought I heard the faraway
rumble of thunder once or twice, when it was my turn on duty; but I may
have been mistaken. Anyhow, it’s a pretty enough morning to eat.”
“Oh! we’ve got plenty to be thankful for,” laughed Teddy, who was
feeling extra joyous it seemed. “Just think, if that big black-browed
pirate had chosen to stay over with us, what a hole he’d have made in
our grub chest this morning. As it is, we got off cheap by bribing him
to go, with that cup of ground coffee; and as sure as you live, we even
got that back again!”
“Do you think we’ll make the lake by night time?” asked Dolph, knowing
that his chum carried a little chart of the peninsula about him, and
was making good use of the same in planning their various moves.
“Ought to,” Teddy replied, thoughtfully, “unless we peg out too soon,
with this hard business of playing the spruce blade. I can tell better
by noon. If we reach that point in front of the wild cranberry marsh,
we ’ll be more than half way there, and should be able to cover the
balance easy enough.”
“I hope we do,” Dolph went on to say.
“Now, you’re thinking of trying those flies you brought along, on the
bass they say inhabit that same lake, and of whopping size too,” Teddy
jokingly remarked.
“Oh! I acknowledge the corn,” the other admitted, candidly; “because I
do happen to be mighty fond of fishing at any and all times. If I can
toss a fly, and get’em, so much the better; but if they won’t whiff at
the feathered lure, why, then I turn to a frog, a minnow, artificial
bait, a trolling spoon, and last, but not always least, the worm. I’m
bound to get fish _some_ way or other, if they’re to be had.”
“I wonder if we’ll meet up with him again?” mused Teddy, as he sank his
paddle deep into the running water of the Manistique, and started the
canoe up stream with a steady muscular push.
“Meaning our big friend, Gabe?” inquired the other, following suit on
his side of the boat; while Amos was already some forty feet in the
van, being a most accomplished waterdog, for he had spent half of his
life swimming and paddling around.
“Yes, Gabe. You see he headed upstream, and that would mean he meant to
keep on the same course we are following. I’d rather it was the other
way; for after my shooting at him, I’m afraid he’ll feel uglier than
ever toward us.”
“Let him,” remarked the good-natured Dolph, easily; “we’ve done nothing
to him. Anybody would have a right to bang away, if they thought a bear
or a cat was sneaking about the camp. And besides, he told us he was
going off; so he couldn’t very well make out that we knew it was him
creeping back. For one I’m going to forget all about Gabe, except that
at night-times perhaps I’ll remember to keep one eye open for intruders
that ain’t cats.”
“Too bad you didn’t have a chance to snap him off,” said Teddy. “He’d
make a fine addition to the pictures you’re gathering, to show what
happened to us on the trip.”
“Gabe happened, all right. And we ought to keep that coffee, to present
to him if ever he shows up again,” Dolph went on to say, with a laugh.
“I’d like to watch his face turn red, if it could get any more so than
it is now, when he saw from our looks that we were on to his little
wrinkle.”
“Why not get a line out as we go along?” Teddy asked. “You might pick
up a trout or two with an artificial minnow. There are lots of likely
places. Perhaps there are black bass here, too. Most of the rivers in
Michigan are full of gamey fighters. I’ve taken them out of the St.
Mary’s, that gave me all the fun anybody could ever want.”
“Oh! I’m not so greedy as all that, or so fish hungry, either. I like
to attend to my rod when I’m fishing, and not trust to luck to have the
trout or bass hook himself. Besides, I’ve got about as much as I want,
keeping tabs of your paddling, and making out to match you every time.
We can camp on the lake a few days, and I reckon I’ll have all the
fishing I want.”
“Well, I take it that’s sensible of you, after all, Dolph. Some boys,
and men too, are so cracked over fishing that they get on your nerves.
And as you say, paddling a canoe against this fierce current is about
all any decent fellow ought to think of doing at a time. Look out for
that snag; it’s got an ugly point, too. Thought at first it was the
head of a water snake sticking up; or a snapping turtle, mebbe. Did you
ever see any one handle a paddle like Amos? I never could learn like
that. He doesn’t seem to make half the effort that we do, and yet see
his boat, how it eats up against the stream.”
“I suppose it’s just because he knows how to do it, and where to place
every ounce of force expended. Some fellows are born paddlers; and
others seem to keep on bunglers all their lives. I guess I belong to
that class,” and Dolph Bradley laughed in his jolly fashion, as though
he did not mean to let such a little thing bother him, at any rate.
“Oh! rats! when you know you’re better than I am by several degrees.
But then we’ve got little to be ashamed of as things go. Only Amos
is away up in a class all by himself. Look at the way he dips in,
will you, not a sound, not a drop spilled. That’s the way to handle
a paddle, when out at night after deer, with a jack; which way of
hunting is knocked on the head these days in most States though,
because too many deer were wounded, and ran away, only to die. I never
had a chance to try it, I must say, did you, Dolph?”
“Once, down in Florida, and when I wasn’t hunting deer at all, but
shining ’gators along the border of a swamp. I had a darky paddling me,
and he pointed to a pair of eyes that he said must be a ’gator; so I
banged away, having a scatter gun, and using buckshot shells. We heard
something kick, and going ashore found a young deer lying there. I was
put out, because I wouldn’t have shot the little thing for any amount
of money. And from that day to this I’ve kept the promise I made to
myself right then and there.”
“What was that?” asked Teddy, although he thought he could guess.
“Never on any account to shoot at something that I didn’t have a pretty
good idea as to what it was. Why, it gave me the creeps to think that
it might just as well have been a little black pickaninny, staring out
at our light; for there was a cabinful not far away.”
Talking in this fashion, the boys beguiled the time away. Often Amos
would hold up, it might be to join in the conversation; or possibly
to draw their attention to some interesting object that had caught his
eye. For although Amos had lived his entire life in the woods, save the
short time he chanced to attend school, he had an artistic temperament,
and his eye unerringly picked out beautiful vistas through the woods,
which seemed to fairly ravish his soul. Indeed, more than once Teddy
had openly declared that if Amos failed to become a doctor, one of
these days, as his ambition led him to hope he would, he would surely
turn out to be a painter; for he discovered beauties in Nature that
neither of the others noticed until the woods boy called attention to
them.
They kept this constant motion up hour after hour. It was tiresome,
of course, but then these boys had persistence well developed, and
knew that if they hoped to camp that night on the lake, they must keep
everlastingly at it.
And just before the sun had climbed to the zenith, or as near as he
meant to ascend, Teddy gave a squawk of delight.
“There’s the place we’re going to spend an hour or two at, fellows,
just ahead, yonder, where that tree bends down over the water.”
“That’s a point of land marked on my chart. Just back of it lies a big
natural cranberry marsh, where the reds grow thick in the fall; but you
see, it’s so far from everywhere, that few of them ever get to market.”
“I want to step back, and take a look at that same marsh myself,”
remarked Dolph. “Don’t believe I ever saw a real wild cranberry bog,
though I’ve been in one down in New Jersey near Barnagat, where they
cultivated the berries. I was having one of those famous sneakboats
built by an old bayman, and paid him a visit to try how it worked that
fall, on the waters there, with a few ducks coming in. Going to land
right here, Teddy?”
“Amos has picked out the best place; trust his eagle eye for seeing it.
Run her up alongside his canoe. That’s the ticket. Now, all ashore and
stretch!”
It certainly felt good to be able to stand up, and get what Teddy
called the “kinks” out of their legs.
As it had been decided to spend some little time here, seeing they
could now easily reach their intended destination ere nightfall, Amos
started a fire, meaning to have a pot of cheering coffee. Teddy busied
himself about something that he had laid out to do, while on the river
that morning; and Dolph, to pass the time away, sauntered back, to find
a way of looking over the cranberry marsh.
He came back presently, and began to take out a fishing rod, quite a
stiff one in the bargain.
“What’s up?” demanded Teddy, watching these preparations curiously.
“Thought you said you didn’t expect to catch a fish until we got to the
lake?”
“Well, I don’t,” replied the other, chuckling, “you wouldn’t call frogs
fish, now, would you?”
“Frogs! Oh! I see, you’ve discovered that the grunting we heard back
there came from a colony of big greenbacks, eh? Well, I hope you’ve got
some red flannel, or if not, then a red ibis bass fly along with you.
They’ll jump at it like hot cakes; and you’ll nearly die laughing to
see the circus that takes place when they find that they just can’t let
go. But I see you know all about it, because you’ve shortened your line
to a foot, and fastened it around your reel handle. Going to put ’em in
that covered bucket, are you? Well, good luck! A dozen saddles wouldn’t
be any too big a mess, Dolph. Call you when the coffee is boiling.”
So Dolph went away, hurrying, for he was considerably excited over the
chance to capture a mess of the frogs; because if there was one dish he
was fond of, it could be set down as frogs’ legs, nicely browned; why,
in his mind they were better than the finest spring chicken ever grown.
Teddy went on with the task he had set out to perform; while Amos
busied himself with his cooking fire, which of course differed from the
usual big camp fire about which the canoe cruisers liked to sit, after
their evening meal was over.
Amos found stones to suit him, and built a cairn that was something
like fourteen inches wide at the mouth, tapering along until at the
other end it did not exceed four inches. On this he could place both
frying-pan and coffee-pot, if both were to be used. And in the cavity,
he proceeded to coax a red fire by adding just the proper kind and
amount of small fuel.
Not more than six or seven minutes had passed when the two boys were
startled by hearing Dolph shouting wildly at the top of his voice; and
they judged that he was coming toward the camp with all the speed he
could command.
“Bear! Big black bear! and chasing after me! Hurry up, and bring a gun,
somebody! Quick! he’s right after me, I tell you! Whoop!” No wonder
that both boys hurriedly snatched up a gun apiece, never looking to see
whose these happened to be, and ran toward the spot from whence the cry
for help proceeded.