CHAPTER XIII
A DEAD WATER TRAGEDY
But Pierre, also, had heard that distant “Ugh-u-u-ugh!” and instantly paused. His own anxiety was lest Adrian should not hear and be still. Fortunately, the wind was in their favor and the sensitive nostrils of the moose less apt to scent them. Having listened a moment, he dropped his pack so softly that, heavy as it was, it scarcely made the undergrowth crack. His gun was always loaded and now making it ready for prompt use, he started back toward his companion. The Indian in his nature came to the fore. His step was alert, precise, and light as that of any four-footed forester. When within sight of the other lad, listening and motionless, his eye brightened.
“If he keeps that way, maybe – Ah!”
The moose called again, but further off. This was a disappointment, but they were on good ground for hunting and another chance would come. Meanwhile they would better make all haste to the thoroughfare. There would be the better place, and out in the canoe they’d have a wider range.
“Here, you. Give me the boat. Did you hear it?”
“Did I not? But you had the gun!”
“Wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d had it. Too far off. Let’s get on.”
Adrian lifted the pack and dropped it in disgust. “I can’t carry that load!”
Pierre was also disgusted – by the other’s ignorance and lack of endurance.
“What you don’t know about the woods beats all. Haven’t you seen anybody pack things before? I’ll show you. When there’s big game handy is no time to quarrel. If a pack’s too heavy, halve it. Watch and learn something.”
Pierre could be both swift and dexterous if he chose, and he rapidly unrolled and divided the contents of the cotton tent. Putting part into the blanket he retied the rest in the sheeting, and now neither bundle was a very severe tax.
“Whew! What’s the sense of that? It’s the same weight. How does halving it help?”
Pierre swung the canoe upon his head and directed:
“Catch hold them straps. Carry one a few rods. Drop it. Come back after the other. Carry that a ways beyond the first. Drop it. Get number one. All time lap over, beyond, over, beyond. So.”
With a stick he illustrated on the ground, and wasting no further time nor speech, clasped his gun the tighter under his arm and trotted forward again.
Adrian obeyed instructions, and though it seemed, at first, a waste to go back and forth along the carry as he had been directed, found that, in the end, he had accomplished his task with small fatigue or delay.
“Another bit of woodcraft for my knowledge box. Useful elsewhere, too. Wish I could get through this country as fast as Pierre does. But he’ll have to wait for me, anyway.”
For a time Adrian could easily trace the route of his guide by the bruises the canoe had given the leaves and undergrowth but after awhile the forest grew more open and this trail was lost. Then he stopped to consider. He had no intention of losing himself again.
“We are aiming for the south. Good. All the big branches of these hemlocks point that way – so yonder’s my road. Queer, too, how mossy the tree trunks are on the north sides. I’ve heard that you could drop an Indian anywhere in any forest and he’d travel to either point of the compass he desired with nothing to guide him but his instinct. Wish I were an Indian! Wish, rather, I had my own compass and good outfit that went over in my canoe. Hurrah! There’s a glimmer of water. That’s the thoroughfare. Now a dash for it!”
Adrian was proud of his new skill in finding his own way through a trackless forest, but though he duly reached the stream he could not for a time see anything of Pierre. He did not wish to shout, lest the moose might be near and take fright, but at last he did give a faint halloo and an answer came at once. Then the boat shot out from behind a clump of alders and made down the river toward him.
The current was swift and strong and there was considerable poling to be done before it touched the shore and Pierre stepped out.
“I’ve been looking round. This is as good a place to camp to-night as we’ll find. Leave the things here, and might as well get ready now. Then we can stay out all day and come back when we like.”
“But I thought we were to go on up the thoroughfare. Why stop here at all? Other camping places are easy to find.”
“Are they? My, you can ask questions. Good many things go to making right sort of camp. Dry ground, good water to drink, fire-wood, poles – Oh! shucks! If you don’t know, keep still and learn.”
This was excellent advice and Adrian was tired. He decided to trust to the other lad’s common sense and larger experience, and having so decided, calmly stretched himself out upon the level bank of the stream and went to sleep.
Pierre’s temper rose still higher and after he had endured the sight of Adrian’s indolence as long as possible he stepped to the river and dipped a bucket of water. Then he returned and quietly dashed it over the drowsy lad. The effect was all that Pierre desired.
“What did you do that for?”
“Take this axe and get to work. I’ve chopped long enough. It’s my turn to rest. Or would be, only I’m after moose.”
Adrian realized that he had given cause for offense and laughed good-naturedly. His nap had rested him much more than his broken sleep of the night under the rocks, and the word “moose” had an inspiration all its own.
“I’ve cut the fire-wood. You get poles for the tent. I’ll get things ready for supper.”
Adrian laid his hand dramatically upon his stomach. “I’ve an inner conviction already that dinner precedes supper.”
“Cut, can’t you?”
“Cut, it is.”
In a few moments he had chopped down a few slender poles, and selecting two with forked branches he planted these upright on a little rise of the driest ground. Across the notches he laid a third pole, and over this he stretched their strip of sheeting. When this was pegged down at a convenient angle at the back and also secured at the ends, they had a very comfortable shelter from the dew and possible rain. The affair was open on one side and before this Pierre had heaped the wood for the fire when they should return after the day’s hunt. Together they cut and spread the spruce and hemlock boughs for their bed, arranging them in overlapping rows, with an added quantity for pillows. Wrapped in their blankets, for even at midsummer these were not amiss, they hoped to sleep luxuriously.
They stored their food in as safe a spot as possible, though Pierre said that nothing would molest it, unless it might be a hungry hedgehog, but Adrian preferred to take no risks. Then with knives freshly sharpened on the rocks, and the gun in hand, they cautiously stepped into the canoe and pushed off.
“One should not jump into a birch. Easiest thing in the world to split the bottom,” its owner had explained.
Adrian had no desire to do anything that would hinder their success, therefore submitted to his guide’s dictation with a meekness that would have amused Margot.
She would not have been amused by their undertaking nor its but half-anticipated results. After a long and difficult warping-up the rapids, in which Adrian’s skill at using the sharp-pointed pole that helped to keep the canoe off the rocks surprised Ricord, they reached a dead water, with low, rush-dotted banks.
“Get her into that cove yonder, and keep still. I’ve brought some bark and’ll make a horn.”
There, while they rested and listened, Pierre deftly rolled his strip of birch-bark into a horn of two feet in length, small at the mouth end but several inches wide at the other. He tied it with cedar thongs and putting it to his lips, uttered a call so like a cow-moose that Adrian wondered more and more.
“Hmm. I thought I was pretty smart, myself; but I’ll step down when you take the stand.”
“’Sh-h-h! Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t breathe, if you can help it.”
Adrian became rigid, all his faculties merged in that one desire to lose no sound.
Again Pierre gave the moose-call, and – hark! what was that? An answering cry, a far-away crashing of boughs, the onrush of some big creature, hastening to its mate.
Noiselessly Pierre brought his gun into position, sighting one distant point from which he thought his prey would come. Adrian’s body dripped with a cold sweat, his hands trembled, specks floated before his staring eyes, every nerve was tense, and, as Margot would have said, he was a-thrill “with murder,” from head to foot! Oh! if the gun were his, and the shot!
Another call, another cry, and a magnificent head came into view. With horns erect and quivering nostrils the monarch of that wilderness came, seeking love, and faced his enemies.
“He’s within range – shoot!” whispered Adrian.
“Only anger him that way. ’Sh! When he turns – ”
“Bang! bang – bang!” in swift succession.
The great horns tossed, the noble head came round again, then bent, wavered and disappeared. The tragedy was over.
“I got him! I got him that time! Always shoot that way, never – ”
Pierre picked up his paddle and sent the canoe forward at a leap. When there came no responding movement from his companion he looked back over his shoulder. Adrian’s face had gone white and the eagerness of his eyes had given place to unspeakable regret.
“What’s the matter? Sick?”
“Yes. Why, it was murder! Margot was right.”
“Oh! shucks!”
Whereupon Pierre pulled the faster toward the body of his victim.
CHAPTER XIV
SHOOTING THE RAPIDS
Three months earlier, if anybody had told Adrian he would ever be guilty of such “squeamishness” he would have laughed in derision. Now, all unconsciously to himself, the influence of his summer at Peace Island was upon him and it came to him with the force of a revelation that God had created the wild creatures of His forests for something nobler than to become the prey of man.
“Oh! that grand fellow! his splendidly defiant, yet hopeless, facing of death! I wish we’d never met him!”
“Well, of all foolishness! I thought you wanted nothing but the chance at him yourself.”
“So I did. Before I saw him. What if it had been Madoc?”
“That’s different.”
“The same. Might have been twin brothers. Maybe they were.”
“Couldn’t have been. Paddle, won’t you?”
Adrian did so, but with a poor grace. He would now far rather have turned the canoe about toward camp, yet railed at himself for his sudden cowardice. He shrank from looking on the dead moose as only an hour before he had longed to do so.
They were soon at the spot where the animal had disappeared and pushing the boat upon the reedy shore, Pierre plunged forward through the marsh. Adrian did not follow, till a triumphant shout reached him. Then he felt in his pocket and, finding a pencil with a bit of paper, made his own way more slowly to the side of his comrade, who, wildly excited, was examining and measuring his quarry. On a broad leaved rush he had marked off a hand’s width and from this unit calculated that:
“He’s eight feet four from hoof to shoulder, and that betters the King by six inches. See. His horns spread nigh six feet. If he stood straight and held them up he’d be fifteen feet or nothing! They spread more’n six feet, and I tell you, he’s a beauty!”
“Yes. He’s all of that. But of what use is his beauty now?”
“Humph! Didn’t know you was a girl!”
Adrian did not answer. He was rapidly and skilfully sketching the prostrate animal, and studying it minutely. From his memory of it alive and the drawing he hoped to paint a tolerably lifelike portrait of the animal; and a fresh inspiration came to him. To those projected woodland pictures he would add glimpses of its wild denizens, and in such a way that the hearts of the beholders should be moved to pity, not to slaughter.
But, already that sharpened knife of Pierre’s was at work, defacing, mutilating.
“Why do that, man?”
“Why not? What ails you? What’d we hunt for?”
“We don’t need him for food. You cannot possibly carry those horns any distance on our trip, and you’re not apt to come back just this same way. Let him lie. You’ve done him all the harm you should. Come on. Is this like him?” And Adrian showed his drawing.
“Oh! it’s like enough. If you don’t relish my job – clear out. I can skin him alone.”
Adrian waited no second bidding, but strolled away to a distance and tried to think of other things than the butchering in progress. But at last Pierre whistled and he had to go back or else be left in the wilderness to fare alone as best he might. It was a ghastly sight. The great skin, splashed and wet with its owner’s blood, the dismembered antlers, the slashed off nose – which such as Pierre considered a precious tid-bit, the naked carcass and the butcher’s own uninviting state.
“I declare, I can never get into the same boat with you and all that horror. Do leave it here. Do wash yourself – there’s plenty of water, and let’s be gone.”
Pierre did not notice the appeal. Though the lust of killing had died out of his eyes the lust of greed remained. Already he was estimating the value of the hide, cured or uncured, and the price those antlers would bring could he once get them to the proper market.
“Why, I’ve heard that in some of the towns folks buy ’em to hang their hats on. Odd! Lend a hand.”
Reluctantly, Adrian did lift his portion of the heavy horns and helped carry them to the birch. He realized that the pluckiest way of putting this disagreeable spot behind him was by doing as he was asked. He was hopeless of influencing the other by any change in his own feelings and wisely kept silence.
But they hunted no more that day, nor did they make any further progress on their journey. Pierre busied himself in erecting a rude frame upon which he stretched the moose skin to dry. He also prepared the antlers and built a sort of hut, of saplings and bark, where he could store his trophies till his return trip.
“For I shall surely come back this same way. It’s good hunting ground and moose feed in herds. Small herds, course, but two, three make a fellow rich. Eh?”
Adrian said nothing. He occupied himself in what Pierre considered a silly fashion, sketching, studying “effects,” and carefully cutting big pieces of the birch-bark that he meant to use for “canvas.” To keep this flat during his travels was a rather difficult problem, but finally solved by cutting two slabs of cedar wood and placing the sheets of bark between these.
Whereupon, Pierre laughed and assured the weary chopper that he had had his trouble for his pains.
“What for you want to carry big lumber that way? Roll your bark. That’s all right. When you want to use it put it in water. Easy. Queer how little you know about things.”
“All right. I was silly, sure enough. But thanks for your teaching. Maybe, if you were in my city I might show you a thing or two.”
Both lads were glad, however, when night came, and having cooked themselves a good supper and replenished their fire, they slept as only such healthy lads can sleep; to wake at sunrise, ready for fresh adventures, and with the tragedy of the previous day partly forgotten even by Adrian. Then, after a hearty breakfast, they resumed their trip.
Nothing eventful occurred for some time after. No more moose appeared, and beyond winging a duck or two and fishing now and then, Pierre kept his hunting instincts down. In fact, he was just then too lazy to exert himself. He felt that he had labored beyond all reason during the past summer and needed a rest. Besides, were not his wages steadily going on? If Adrian was silly enough to paint and paint and paint – all day, this old tree and that mossy stump, he was not responsible for another man’s stupidity. Not he. The food was still holding out, so let things take their course.
Suddenly, however, Adrian realized that they were wasting time. He had made sketches on everything and anything he could find and had accumulated enough birch-bark to swamp the canoe, should they strike rough water; and far more than was comfortable for him to carry over any portage. So one morning he announced his intention of leaving the wilderness and getting back to civilization.
“All right. I go with you. Show me the town, then I’ll come back.”
“Well. As you please. Only I don’t propose to pay you any longer than will take us, now by the shortest road, to Donovan’s.”
“Time enough to borrow that trouble when you see it.”
But Pierre suggested that, as Adrian wished to learn everything possible about the woods, he should now take the guidance of affairs, and that whenever things went wrong he, Pierre, could point the way. He did this because, of late, he fancied that his young employer had taken a “too top-lofty” tone in addressing him; and, in truth, Adrian’s day-dreams of coming fame and his own genius were making him feel vastly superior to the rough woodsman.
They had paddled over dead water to a point where two streams touched it, and the question rose – which way?
“That!” said Adrian, with decision, pointing to the broader and more southern of the two.
“Good enough.”
For a moment the leader fancied there was a gleam of malice in his hireling’s eye, but he considered it beneath his notice and calmly turned the canoe into the thoroughfare he had chosen. It was wonderfully smooth and delightful paddling. In all their trip they had not found so level a stream, and it was nothing but enjoyment of the scenery that Adrian felt, until it seemed to him that they had been moving a long time without arriving anywhere. “Haven’t we?” he asked.
“Oh! we’ll get there soon, now.”
Presently things began to look familiar. There was one curiously shaped, lightning-riven pine, standing high above its fellows, that appeared like an old friend.
“Why, what’s this? Can there be two trees, exactly alike, within a half-day’s rowing? I’ve certainly sketched that old landmark from every side, and – Hello! yonder’s my group of white-birches or I’m blind. How queer!”
A few more sweeps and the remains of the camp they had that morning left were before them, and Pierre could no longer repress his glee.
“Good guide, you! Trust a know-it-all for making mistakes.”
“What does it mean?” demanded Adrian, angrily.
“Nothing. Only you picked out a run-about, a little branch of river, that wanders out of course and then comes home again. Begins and ends the same. Oh! you’re wise, you are.”
“Would the other lead us right?”
“Yes.”
“But it turns north. We’re bound south.”
“That’s no matter. Can’t a river turn, same as runabouts?”
“I give up. You guide. I’ll stick to my brush.”
This restored affairs to the ground which Pierre considered proper; and having paused long enough to eat a lunch, they set out afresh. The new track they followed ascended steadily, and it proved a difficult stream to get up; but the ascent was accomplished without accident and then the surface of the land altered. Again they reached a point where two branches met and Pierre explained that the waters of one ran due north, but the other bent gradually toward the south and in a little while descended through one of the most dangerous “rips” he had ever seen.
“Only saw them once, too. When I went as far as Donovan’s with the master, year before last.”
“Didn’t know he ever came so far from the island.”
“Why, he goes once every summer, or fall, as far as that New York of yours. Likely he’ll be going soon again.”
“He does? Queer he never mentioned it.”
“Maybe. I’ve a notion, though, that the things he don’t say are more important than what he does. Ever shoot a rip?”
“No. I’ve tried and failed. That’s how I happened to get lost and wandered to Dutton’s.”
“He’s the boss hand at it. Seems as if the danger fired him up. Makes him feel as I do when I hunt big game. He didn’t need my help, only fetched me along to take back some truck. That’s how he picked me out to show you. He knew I knew – ”
“And I wish I knew – lots of things!”
“One of ’em might be that round that next turn comes the first dip. Then, look out.”
The stream was descending very perceptibly; and they needed no paddling to keep them moving. But they did require to be incessantly on the watch to guard against the rocks which obstructed the current and which threatened the safety of their frail craft.
“You keep an eye on me and one on the channel. It’ll take a clear head to carry us through, and no fooling.”
Adrian did not answer. He had no thought for anything just then but the menace of those jagged points which seemed to reach toward them as if to destroy.
Nor did Pierre speak again. Far better even than his silent companion could he estimate the perils which beset them. Life itself was the price which they would pay for a moment’s carelessness; but a cool head, a clear eye, and a steady wrist – these meant safety and the proud record of a dangerous passage wisely made. A man who could shoot those rapids was a guide who might, indeed, some time demand the high wages at which Adrian had jeered.
Suddenly, the channel seemed barred by two opposing bowlders, whose points lapped each other. In reality, there was a way between them, by the shortest of curves and of but little more than the canoe’s width. Pierre saw and measured the distance skilfully, but he had not counted upon the opposing force of the water that rushed against them.
“Look – out! take – ”
Behind the right-hand rock seethed a mighty whirlpool where the river speeding downward was caught and tossed back upon itself, around and around, mad to escape yet bound by its own power.
Into this vortex the canoe was hurled; to be instantly overturned and dashed to pieces on the rock.
On its first circuit of the pool Adrian leaped and landed upon the slippery bowlder – breathless, but alive! His hand still clasped the pole he had been using to steer with, and Pierre – ? He had almost disappeared within the whirling water, that tossed him like a feather.