Adventures of a Young Naturalist Part 8

For four hours we proceeded through the forest, feeling almost overcome with the heat. Pines and oaks appeared, one after another, in almost monotonous regularity. Gradually the ground began to slope, and the altered pace we had to adopt both rested us and also increased the speed of our march. At length we emerged into a valley. The vegetation was now of an altered character, the ceibas, lignum-vitae trees, and creepers were here and there to be seen.

"Halt!" I cried out.

I soon got rid of my travelling gear, an example my companions were not slow in following. L'Encuerado and Lucien immediately set to work to find some dry branches, while Sumichrast and I began to cut down the gra.s.s over a s.p.a.ce of several square yards.

"Have we finished our day's journey, then?" asked Lucien.

"Yes," I replied; "don't you feel tired?"

"Not very; I could easily go farther. Have we walked very far?"

"About four leagues."

"And are we really going to rest after a trifle like that? I always thought travellers went on walking until night."

"Nonsense!" said I, taking hold of his ear. "What an undaunted young pedestrian! Four leagues a day are no such trifle when you have to begin again next morning. 'Slow and steady wins the race,' says an old proverb, which I intend to carry out to the letter; for forced marches would soon injure our health, and then good-bye to the success of our expedition. As to walking until night, it is perfectly impossible, except when one is certain to meet with an inn. Under these large trees, no one will ever think of getting ready a meal for us; and, I suppose, you haven't much wish to die of hunger. We may very likely have to tramp one or two leagues more before we are able to kill the game which will form the mainstay of our dinner."

"I never thought of all that," said Lucien, shaking his head, and looking convinced; "but what shall we have to eat this evening?"

"At present, I haven't the least idea; perhaps a hare or a bird, or even a rat."

"A rat! I certainly will never touch one."

"Ah! my boy, wait till you are really hungry--you don't know as yet what it is to be so--and then you'll see how greedily you will make a dinner off whatever Providence provides."

"Do you think we shall often have to go a whole day without eating?"

"I hope not," I answered, smiling at Lucien's anxious and somewhat pensive tone.

During this conversation, l'Encuerado, as active as a monkey, had clambered up a pine, and his _machete_ was strewing the ground with slender boughs. We also set to work at shaping the stakes, which I drove into the ground by means of a stone, which served as a hammer. Some branches, interwoven and tied together by creepers, formed a kind of hurdle, which, fixed on the top of the posts, did for a roof. The Indian, a.s.sisted by his little companion, who was much interested in all the preparations, filled the hut with leaves, and covered the branches with a layer of dry gra.s.s. Under this shelter, we could set the rain at defiance, if not the cold.

It is impossible to describe Lucien's enchantment. This _house_ (for this was the name he chose to give to the shapeless hut, in which our party could scarcely stand upright) appeared to him a perfect masterpiece of architecture, and he was astonished at the rapidity with which it had been built. He helped l'Encuerado to make up the fire, so that all that was requisite on our return was to set a light to it.

Then, armed with our guns, we set off to seek for our dinners.

Seeing that we left behind us all our baggage, Lucien exclaimed,

"Suppose any one came and stole our provisions?"

"Upon my word," cried Sumichrast, "you're the boy to think of every thing. But there's no need to fear this misfortune; most likely, we are the only persons in the forest; or if any one else should be here, it would be an almost miraculous chance if they discovered our bivouac."

"Then we are not on any road?"

"You may call it a road if you like, but we are the only people who have trod it; no one could discover our encampment unless they had followed us step by step."

The child shook his head with a rather doubtful air; the idea of the desert is not readily nor suddenly comprehended. I well recollect that, during my first excursions in the wilderness, I was constantly expecting to catch sight of some human face, either just when I was emerging from a wood or in following the paths made in the savannah by wild cattle. At night, especially when I was troubled by sleeplessness, I was always fancying that I recognized, in the distant sounds, either the crow of a c.o.c.k, the barking of a dog, or the burden of some familiar song.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We now entered one of those glades."]

"But if no one can discover our bivouac," remarked Lucien, casting a glance behind him, "how shall we manage to find it again?"

"In a way that is simple, but rather laborious; we shall walk one after the other, and the last man's duty will be to notch the trees and shrubs."

"Shall I walk first?" asked Lucien.

"No; that place belongs by right to the best shot; for if we put up any game, we mustn't let it escape. In the mean time, until you know how to use your gun, you shall form the rear-guard."

This duty did not seem to displease Lucien, who immediately seized his sword and followed us, at a little distance, inflicting on the trunks of the trees the gashes which were to guide us on our return. He performed his work with so much ardor that his strength was soon exhausted.

L'Encuerado afterwards taught him how to handle his weapon in a more skillful manner, and to notch the trees without stopping in his walk. A path marked in this manner is called, in Canada and the United States, a blaze road.

We now entered one of those glades which are so often met with in the midst of a virgin forest, although it is impossible to explain the cause why the trees do not grow just in these spots. As there was no living creature to be seen, I agreed with Sumichrast to leave Lucien and l'Encuerado on the watch, and that we should walk round, each on our own side, so as to meet again at the other extremity of the open s.p.a.ce.

Gringalet, seeing us separate, could not at first make up his mind which party he should go with; but bounded from one to the other, and caressed each of us, raising plaintive whines. At last he seemed determined to follow me, but scarcely had I progressed a hundred yards before he stopped, as if to reflect. He probably thought he had left something behind, for he quickly disappeared.

I walked for half an hour through the brake, with eye and ear both on the watch, and my finger on the trigger, without discovering the least evidence of game. My companion did not appear more fortunate than I was, when suddenly a gun went off. At the same time, I saw Sumichrast pointing to a number of squirrels crossing the glade.

"Have you killed one?" I asked.

"Yes; but it is sticking fast between two branches, sixty feet above the ground; it is a shot thrown away."

We watched anxiously the rapid bounds of the graceful little animals which we had just disturbed, as they were fast making their way into the wood.

"Is l'Encuerado asleep?" I cried, with vexation.

My question was answered by two shot-reports in succession, and almost immediately Gringalet, l'Encuerado, and Lucien emerged from the forest.

After searching about for a few minutes, the boy raised up his arm and showed us two squirrels he was holding. We now hastened our steps; the Indian had taken possession of the game, and was moving on towards our bivouac, while Lucien ran to meet us.

"Papa, papa!" he cried, all out of breath, "my gun killed one of the squirrels. Oh! M. Sumichrast, you shall see it; it is gray, with a tail like a plume."

"But was it really you that shot?" I asked.

"Oh yes! I shot, but l'Encuerado held my gun; we aimed into the middle of them, for there were a great many. If you could only have seen how they jumped! The one I hit climbed up on the tree close by; but it soon fell as dead as a stone. L'Encuerado says that it hadn't time to suffer much pain."

The poor child was making his _debut_ as a sportsman, and his heart seemed rather full, although he was very proud of this first proof of his skill. Sumichrast was the first to congratulate him. As for me, although I was well aware of the Indian's prudence, I made up my mind, if only for the sake of economizing our powder, both to blame him and also to caution him against his desire of letting the boy shoot.

"Come," said I to Lucien, who was hugging his gun against his chest, "you must be our leader in finding our way back to our encampment. You marked out the road, so mind you don't mislead us."

Our young guide led us back to our starting-point with far more self-possession than I expected.

"A child's attention is always being drawn away," observed Sumichrast to me. "How do you explain Lucien's having followed the trail so readily?"

"Perhaps because it was partly his own work," I replied.

"It is, too, because I am so short," replied the child, with an arch smile; "I am much closer to the ground than you are, almost as close as Gringalet, who is so very clever in finding a trail. You see, papa, that it's some benefit in being little, and that I have some chance of being useful."

I need hardly say how much we were diverted at this novel argument against a lofty stature.

"At this rate," I replied, "I ought to have brought your brother Emile; for he is so short that he would have followed a trail even better than you."

"Of course you ought. Don't you recollect that when we were walking over the mountain of Borrego, he often spied out insects that you had missed seeing?"