Rolf in the Woods Part 17

After vainly going around, Quonab said to Rolf: "Hit him with something, so he'll move."

Rolf always was a good shot with stones, but he found none to throw.

Near where they stood, however, was an unfreezing spring, and the soggy snow on it was easily packed into a hard, heavy s...o...b..ll. Rolf threw it straight, swift, and by good luck it hit the panther square on the nose and startled him so that he sprang right out of the tree and flopped into the snow.

Skook.u.m was on him at once, but got a slap on the ear that changed his music, and the panther bounded away out of sight with the valiant Skook.u.m ten feet behind, whooping and yelling like mad.

It was annoyance rather than fear that made that panther take to a low tree while Skook.u.m boxed the compa.s.s, and made a beaten dog path all around him. The hunters approached very carefully now, making little sound and keeping out of sight. The panther was wholly engrossed with observing the astonis.h.i.+ng impudence of that dog, when Quonab came quietly up, leaned his rifle against a tree and fired. The smoke cleared to show the panther on his back, his legs convulsively waving in the air, and Skook.u.m tugging valiantly at his tail.

"My panther," he seemed to say; "whatever would you do without me?"

A panther in a deer yard is much like a wolf shut up in a sheepfold. He would probably have killed all the deer that winter, though there were ten times as many as he needed for food; and getting rid of him was a piece of good luck for hunters and deer, while his superb hide made a n.o.ble trophy that in years to come had unexpected places of honour.

Chapter 43. Sunday in the Woods

Rolf still kept to the tradition of Sunday, and Quonab had in a manner accepted it. It was a curious fact that the red man had far more toleration for the white man's religious ideas than the white man had for the red's.

Quonab's songs to the sun and the spirit, or his burning of a tobacco pinch, or an animal's whiskers were to Rolf but harmless nonsense. Had he given them other names, calling them hymns and incense, he would have been much nearer respecting them. He had forgotten his mother's teaching: "If any man do anything sincerely, believing that thereby he is wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d, he is wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d." He disliked seeing Quonab use an axe or a gun on Sunday, and the Indian, realizing that such action made "evil medicine" for Rolf, practically abstained. But Rolf had not yet learned to respect the red yarns the Indian hung from a deer's skull, though he did come to understand that he must let them alone or produce bad feeling in camp.

Sunday had become a day of rest and Quonab made it also a day of song and remembrance.

They were sitting one Sunday night by the fire in the cabin, enjoying the blaze, while a storm rattled on the window and door. A white-footed mouse, one of a family that lived in the shanty, was trying how close he could come to Skook.u.m's nose without being caught, while Rolf looked on. Quonab was lying back on a pile of deer skins, with his pipe in his mouth, his head on the bunk, and his hands clasped back of his neck.

There was an atmosphere of content and brotherly feeling; the evening was young, when Rolf broke silence:

"Were you ever married, Quonab?"

"Ugh," was the Indian's affirmative.

"Where?"

"Myanos."

Rolf did not venture more questions, but left the influence of the hour to work. It was a moment of delicate poise, and Rolf knew a touch would open the door or double bar it. He wondered how he might give that touch as he wished it. Skook.u.m still slept. Both men watched the mouse, as, with quick movements it crept about. Presently it approached a long birch stick that stood up against the wall. High hanging was the song-drum. Rolf wished Quonab would take it and let it open his heart, but he dared not offer it; that might have the exact wrong effect. Now the mouse was behind the birch stick. Then Rolf noticed that the stick if it were to fall would strike a drying line, one end of which was on the song-drum peg. So he made a dash at the mouse and displaced the stick; the jerk it gave the line sent the song-drum with hollow b.u.mping to the ground. The boy stooped to replace it; as he did, Quonab grunted and Rolf turned to see his hand stretched for the drum. Had Rolf officiously offered it, it would have been refused; now the Indian took it, tapped and warmed it at the fire, and sang a song of the Wabanaki.

It was softly done, and very low, but Rolf was close, for almost the first time in any long rendition, and he got an entirely new notion of the red music. The singer's face brightened as he tummed and sang with peculiar grace notes and throat warbles of "Kaluscap's war with the magi," and the spirit of his people, rising to the sweet magic of melody, came s.h.i.+ning in his eyes. He sang the lovers' song, "The Bark Canoe." (See F. R. Burton's "American Primitive Music.)

"While the stars s.h.i.+ne and falls the dew, I seek my love in bark canoe."

And then the cradle song,

"The Naked Bear Shall Never Catch Thee."

When he stopped, he stared at the fire; and after a long pause Rolf ventured, "My mother would have loved your songs."

Whether he heard or not, the warm emanation surely reached the Indian, and he began to answer the question of an hour before:

"Her name was Gamowini, for she sang like the sweet night bird at Asamuk. I brought her from her father's house at Saugatuck. We lived at Myanos. She made beautiful baskets and moccasins. I fished and trapped; we had enough. Then the baby came. He had big round eyes, so we called him Wee-wees, 'our little owl,' and we were very happy. When Gamowini sang to her baby, the world seemed full of sun. One day when Wee-wees could walk she left him with me and she went to Stamford with some baskets to sell. A big s.h.i.+p was in the harbour. A man from the s.h.i.+p told her that his sailors would buy all her baskets. She had no fear. On the s.h.i.+p they seized her for a runaway slave, and hid her till they sailed away.

"When she did not come back I took Wee-wees on my shoulder and went quickly to Stamford. I soon found out a little, but the people did not know the s.h.i.+p, or whence she came, or where she went, they said. They did not seem to care. My heart grew hotter and wilder. I wanted to fight. I would have killed the men on the dock, but they were many. They bound me and put me in jail for three months. 'When I came out Wee-wees was dead. They did not care. I have heard nothing since. Then I went to live under the rock, so I should not see our first home. I do not know; she may be alive. But I think it killed her to lose her baby."

The Indian stopped; then rose quickly. His face was hard set. He stepped out into the snowstorm and the night. Rolf was left alone with Skook.u.m.

Sad, sad, everything seemed sad in his friend's life, and Rolf, brooding over it with wisdom beyond his years, could not help asking: "Had Quonab and Gamowini been white folk, would it have happened so? Would his agony have been received with scornful indifference?" Alas! he knew it would not. He realized it would have been a very different tale, and the sequent questions that would not down, were, "Will this bread cast on the waters return after many days?" "Is there a G.o.d of justice and retribution?" "On whom will the flail of vengeance fall for all these abominations?"

Two hours later the Indian returned. No word was spoken as he entered.

He was not cold. He must have walked far. Rolf prepared for bed. The Indian stooped, picked up a needle from the dusty ground, one that had been lost the day before, silently handed it to his companion, who gave only a recognizant "Hm," and dropped it into the birch-bark box.

Chapter 44. The Lost Bundle of Furs

There had been a significant cessation of robbery on their trap line after the inconclusive visit to the enemy's camp. But a new and extreme exasperation arose in the month of March, when the alternation of thaw and frost had covered the snow with a hard crust that rendered snowshoes unnecessary and made it easy to run anywhere and leave no track.

They had gathered up a fisher and some martens before they reached the beaver pond. They had no beaver traps now, but it was interesting to call and see how many of the beavers were left, and what they were doing.

Bubbling springs on the bank of the pond had made open water at several places, now that the winter frost was weakening. Out of these the beavers often came, as was plainly seen in the tracks, so the trappers approached them carefully.

They were scrutinizing one of them from behind a log, Quonab with ready gun, Rolf holding the unwilling Skook.u.m, when the familiar broad, flat head appeared. A large beaver swam around the hole, sniffed and looked, then silently climbed the bank, evidently making for a certain aspen tree that he had already been cutting. He was in easy range, and the gunner was about to fire when Rolf pressed his arm and pointed. Here, wandering through the wood, came a large lynx. It had not seen or smelt any of the living creatures ahead, as yet, but speedily sighted the beaver now working away to cut down his tree.

As a pelt, the beaver was worth more than the lynx, but the naturalist is strong in most hunters, and they watched to see what would happen.

The lynx seemed to sink into the ground, and was lost to sight as soon as he knew of a possible prey ahead. And now he began his stalk. The hunters sighted him once as he crossed a level opening in the snow. He seemed less than four inches high as he crawled. Logs, ridges, trees, or twigs, afforded ample concealment, till his whiskers appeared in a thicket within fifteen feet of the beaver.

All this was painfully exciting to Skook.u.m, who, though he could not see, could get some thrilling whiffs, and he strained forward to improve his opportunities. The sound of this slight struggle caught the beaver's ear. It stopped work, wheeled, and made for the water hole. The lynx sprang from his ambush, seized the beaver by the back, and held on; but the beaver was double the lynx's weight, the bank was steep and slippery, the struggling animals kept rolling down hill, nearer and nearer the hole. Then, on the very edge, the beaver gave a great plunge, and splashed into the water with the lynx clinging to its back. At once they disappeared, and the hunters rushed to the place, expecting them to float up and be an easy prey; but they did not float. At length it was clear that the pair had gone under the ice, for in water the beaver was master.

After five minutes it was certain that the lynx must be dead. Quonab cut a sapling and made a grappler. He poked this way and that way under the ice, until at length he felt something soft. With the hatchet they cut a hole over the place and then dragged out the body of the lynx. The beaver, of course, escaped and was probably little the worse.

While Quonab skinned the catch, Rolf prowled around the pond and soon came running back to tell of a remarkable happening.

At another open hole a beaver had come out, wandered twenty yards to a mound which he had castorized, then pa.s.sed several hard wood trees to find a large poplar or aspen, the favourite food tree. This he had begun to fell with considerable skill, but for some strange reason, perhaps because alone, he had made a miscalculation, and when the tree came cras.h.i.+ng down, it had fallen across his back, killed him, and pinned him to the ground.

It was an easy matter for the hunters to remove the log and secure his pelt, so they left the beaver pond, richer than they had expected.

Next night, when they reached their half-way shanty, they had the best haul they had taken on this line since the memorable day when they got six beavers.

The morning dawned clear and bright. As they breakfasted, they noticed an extraordinary gathering of ravens far away to the north, beyond any country they had visited. At least twenty or thirty of the birds were sailing in great circles high above a certain place, uttering a deep, sonorous croak, from time to time. Occasionally one of the ravens would dive down out of sight.

"Why do they fly above that way?"

"That is to let other ravens know there is food here. Their eyes are very good. They can see the signal ten miles away, so all come to the place. My father told me that you can gather all the ravens for twenty miles by leaving a carca.s.s so they can see it and signal each other."

"Seems as if we should look into that. Maybe another panther," was Rolf's remark.

The Indian nodded; so leaving the bundle of furs in a safe place with the snowshoes, that they carried on a chance, they set out over the hard crust. It was two or three miles to the ravens' gathering, and, as before, it proved to be over a cedar brake where was a deer yard.

Skook.u.m knew all about it. He rushed into the woods, filled with the joy of martial glory. But speedily came running out again as hard as he could, yelling "yow, yow, yowl" for help, while swiftly following, behind him were a couple of gray wolves. Quonab waited till they were within forty yards; then, seeing the men, the wolves slowed up and veered; Quonab fired; one of the wolves gave a little, doglike yelp.

Then they leaped into the bushes and were lost to view.