THE FOREST PILOT




[Illustration: “Shoot! Shoot! For God’s sake shoot, Larry!”]




                          THE FOREST PILOT
                       A STORY FOR BOY SCOUTS

                        BY EDWARD HUNTINGTON

                              NEW YORK
                 HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO.
                                1915




                          Copyright, 1915,
            By HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO., Inc.

    All rights reserved, including the translation into foreign
               languages, including the Scandinavian.




                              CONTENTS

                   I The Storm
                  II The Home on the Rocks
                 III The First Supper
                  IV Lessons in Piloting
                   V The Story of Weewah the Hunter
                  VI Final Preparations
                 VII The Journey Through the Forest
                VIII The Blizzard
                  IX The Timber Wolves
                   X The Wounded Moose
                  XI The Return to the Wreck
                 XII The Early Morning Visitor




                             CHAPTER I

                             THE STORM


The November sun that had been red and threatening all day, slowly
disappeared behind a cloud bank. The wind that had held steadily to
the south for a week, now shifted suddenly to the northeast, coming
as a furious blast. In a moment, it seemed, the mild Indian Summer
breeze was changed to a fierce winter gale.

The little schooner yacht that had been riding in the bay not more
than a half mile from the jagged, rocky shore line, began dancing
about like a cork. For a swell had come driving in from the ocean
just as the wind changed, and now the two tall masts waved back and
forth, bending in wide sweeps before the gale. Unfortunately for the
little craft the change of the direction of the wind exposed it to
the storm’s full fury.

The captain, a weatherbeaten old Yankee who had sailed vessels of
his own as well as those belonging to other people for forty years,
was plainly worried. With a glass in his hand he scanned the shore
line of the bay in every direction, occasionally giving a sharp
order to the four sailors who hurried about the deck to carry out
his commands.

The only other persons on the yacht were a man and a boy who had
been sitting together beside the forward mast when the wind changed.
The man was a tall, straight figure, with the erect carriage that
sinewy, muscular men who are accustomed to hard work retain well
into old age. His face, with its leathery skin, which contrasted
sharply with his iron gray beard, was softened by a pair of deep
blue eyes--the kind of blue eyes that can snap with determination on
occasion, in contrast to their usually kindly expression.

Obviously this man was past his prime, or, better perhaps, was past
that period of life reckoned in years that civilized man has become
accustomed to speaking of as “prime.” Yet he was old only in years
and experience. For his step was quick and elastic, and every
movement showed the alertness of youth. Were it not for the gray
hairs peeping out from under his hat and his grizzled beard, he
might have passed for a man of forty. Martin MacLean was his name,
and almost any one in the New Brunswick forest region could tell you
all about him. For Martin was a famous hunter and guide, even in a
land where almost every male inhabitant depends upon those two
things for his livelihood.

Needless to say, then, this man was something quite out of the
ordinary among woodsmen. When the woods people gossiped among
themselves about their hunting and trapping experiences, old Martin
was often the theme of many a story. And the story was always one of
courage or skill.

But you must remember that in this land, deeds of courage and skill
were every-day occurrences. So that the man who could earn the
admiration of his fellow woodsmen must possess unusual qualities.
Martin had repeatedly demonstrated these qualities. Not by any
single act at any one time, but by the accumulated acts of many
years had he earned his title of leader in his craft.

The older woodsmen would tell you of the terrible winter when Martin
had made a journey of fifty miles through the forests to get
medicines from the only doctor within a hundred miles for a boy
injured by a falling tree. They would tell you of the time that a
hunting party from the States were lost in the woods in a great
November blizzard, and how Martin, frost-bitten and famished, had
finally found them and brought them back to the settlement. They
could tell of his fight with a wounded moose that had gored another
hunter, and would have killed him but for the quick work of Martin’s
hunting knife. Indeed, once the old hunter became the theme of their
talk, there was no end to the tales the woodsmen would tell of his
adventures.

The boy who was with him on the yacht was obviously from an entirely
different walk of life. Any woodsman could have told you that he had
been reared far from the country of lakes and forests. He was,
indeed, a city boy, who except for one winter spent in the
Adirondacks, had scarcely been beyond the suburbs of his native
city. In the north country he would have passed for a boy of twelve
years; but in reality he was just rounding his fifteenth birthday.

He was a medium sized boy for his age, with bright red hair, and a
rosy complexion. He had the appearance of a boy just outgrowing a
“delicate constitution” as one of the neighbor women had put it,
although he had every appearance of robustness. Nevertheless it was
on account of his health that he was now on the little schooner
yacht rolling in the gale of a bleak Labrador inlet. His neighbor in
the city, Mr. Ware, the owner of the yacht, thinking that a few
weeks in the woods and on the water would be helpful to him, had
made him a member of his hunting party into the northern wilderness.

The old guide was obviously apprehensive at the fury of the gale
that had struck them, while the boy, Larry, seemed to regard it as a
lark designed for their special amusement. Noticing the serious
expression of Martin’s face, and mistaking its meaning, he could not
help jibing the old fellow, boy fashion, at his solicitude.

“You look as if you thought we were going to the bottom sure enough,
Martin,” Larry laughed. “Why, there isn’t any more danger on this
boat than there is on an ocean liner. You’re no seaman, I can see
that.” And he threw back his bushy head and laughed heartily at his
companion’s serious face.

“Besides,” he added, “there’s the land only half a mile away even if
we did spring a leak or something. It’s only a step over there, so
we surely could get ashore.”

“That’s just the trouble,” said a deep voice beside him. “That’s
just the trouble. And if you knew the first thing about a ship or
the ocean you would know it.” And the captain strode aft, giving
orders to his seamen as he went.

“What does he mean?” Larry asked of Martin, clinging to a brass
stanchion to keep from being thrown into the scuppers as the little
boat rolled heavily until the rail dipped the water.

“Why, just this,” Martin told him. “The real danger to us now is
that we are so near the shore. Out in the open sea we could roll and
tumble about and drift as far as we liked until the storm blew over.
But here if we drift very far we will go smash against those
rocks--and that would be the end of every one of us.”

“Well, if we went ashore why couldn’t we just jump and swim right to
land a few feet away?” Larry asked, looking serious himself now, his
blue eyes opening wide.

Martin’s little laugh was lost in the roar of the wind.

“That shows how much of a landlubber you are, Larry,” he said. “If
you had been brought up near the ocean you would know that if this
boat struck on this shore where all the coast is a lot of jagged
rocks, it would be smashed into kindling wood. And no man can swim
in the waves at the shore. They pick a man up like a cork; but they
smash him down on those rocks like the hammer of the old Norse Sea
god. That is why the sailor prays for the open sea.”

All this time Martin had been clinging to the rail with one hand,
and trying to scan the shore line with his hunting glasses. But the
blinding spray and the ceaseless rolling and pitching made it
impossible for him to use them.

“But I’m not worrying about what may happen to this boat,” he
shouted presently, putting the glasses in his pocket. “Either we
will come out all right or else we won’t. And in any case we will
have to grin and take what comes. What I’m worried about is Mr. Ware
and the fellows in the boat with him. If they have started out from
shore to come aboard before this gale hit us they are lost, sure.
And I am certain they had started, for I caught a glimpse of the
boat coming out of a cove fifteen minutes before the storm broke.”

For a minute Larry stared at the old man, comprehending the
seriousness of the situation at last. “You mean then--” he asked,
clutching the brass rail as the boat lurched forward,--“You mean that
you think they will be drowned--really drowned, Martin?”

“That’s it, Larry,” Martin replied, seriously. “They haven’t one
chance in a thousand, as I see it. Even if they could reach us we
couldn’t get them aboard; and if they are blown ashore it will end
everything. They haven’t a chance.”

As if to emphasize the seriousness of the situation the yacht just
then dug her nose deep into the trough of a great wave, then rose,
lifting her bowsprit high in the air like a rearing horse tugging at
a restraining leash. It was a strain that tested every link of the
anchor chain to its utmost. But for the moment it held.

“A few more like that, Larry,” Martin shouted above the gale, “and
that chain will snap. The anchor is caught fast in the rocks at the
bottom.”

Meanwhile the sailors and the captain were working desperately to
cut loose the other anchor and get it over the side as their only
chance of keeping the boat off the rocks. The gale, the rolling of
the vessel, and the waves buffeted them about, however, so that
before they could release the heavy mass of iron, the yacht again
plunged her nose into the waves, then rose on her stern, trembling
and jerking at the single anchor chain. For a moment it held. Then
there was a sharp report, as a short length of chain flew back,
knocking two of the sailors overboard, and gouging a great chunk of
wood from the fore mast. At the same time the boat settled back,
careening far to port with the rail clear under.

The violence of the shock had thrown Larry off his feet, but for a
moment he clung to the railing with one hand. Then as the boat
righted herself, quivering and creaking, the flood of water coming
over the bow tore loose his hands, and hurled him blinded and
stupified along the deck. The next thing he knew he found himself
lying in a heap at the foot of the narrow companionway stairs down
which he had been thrown by the waves.

He was dazed and bruised by the fall, yet above the roar of the
storm, he heard faintly the howling of the huskie dogs, confined in
a pen on the forward deck. Then there was the awful roar of the
waves again, the crash of breaking timbers, and again a deluge of
water poured down the companionway. At the same time Larry was
struck with some soft, heavy object, that came hurtling down with
the torrent of water. Gasping for breath and half choked with the
water, he managed to cling to the steps until the water had rushed
out through the scuppers as the boat heeled over the other way. Then
crawling on hands and knees he succeeded in reaching the cabin door,
the latch of which was not over six feet away.

With a desperate plunge he threw it open and fell sprawling into the
room. At the same time two great malamoot dogs, who had been washed
down the companionway with the preceding wave, sprang in after him,
whining and cowering against him. Even in his fright he could not
help contrasting the present actions of these dogs with their usual
behavior. Ordinarily they were quiet, reserved fellows, given to
minding their own business and imparting the general impression that
it would be well for others to do the same. Now all their sturdy
independence was gone, and cowering and trembling they pressed close
to the boy for protection, apparently realizing that they were
battling with an enemy against whom they had no defence.

But the storm gave Larry little time to think of anything but his
own safety. Even as he struggled to rise and push the cabin door
shut, the boat heeled over and performed that office for him with a
crash. The next moment a torrent of water rushed down the
companionway, but only a few drops were forced through the cracks of
the door casing, fitted for just such an occasion, so that the cabin
remained practically dry. Over and over again at short intervals
this crash of descending waters shook the cabin and strained at the
door casing. And all the time the movements of the boat kept Larry
lying close to the floor, clinging to the edge of the lower bunk to
keep from being thrown violently across the cabin.

The dogs, unable to find a foothold when the cabin floor rose
beneath them, were often thrown violently about the room, their
claws scratching futilely along the hard boards as they strove to
stop the impetus of the fall. But the moment the boat righted
itself, they crawled whimpering back and crouched close to the
frightened boy.

Little enough, indeed, was the protection or comfort Larry could
give the shivering brutes. He himself was sobbing with terror, and
at each plunge and crash of the boat he expected to find himself
engulfed by the black waters. Now and again, above the sound of the
storm, he heard the crash of splintering timbers, with furious blows
upon the decks and against the sides of the hull. He guessed from
this that the masts had been broken off and were pounding for a
moment against the hull, held temporarily by the steel shrouds until
finally torn away by the waves.

Vaguely he wondered what had become of Martin, and the Captain, and
the two remaining members of the crew. Perhaps they had been washed
down the after companionway as he had gone down the forward one. But
far more likely they were now in their long resting place at the
bottom of the bay. There seemed little probability that they had
been as lucky as he, and he expected to follow them at any moment.
Yet he shut his teeth and clung fast to the side of the bunk.

It was terribly exhausting work, this clinging with one’s hands, and
at each successive plunge he felt his grip weakening. In a very few
minutes, he knew he should find himself hurled about the cabin like
a loose piece of furniture, and then it would only be a matter of
minutes until he was flung against some object and crushed. He would
not be able to endure the kind of pounding that the dogs were
getting. The protection of their thick fur, and the ability to relax
and fall limply, saved them from serious injury.

Little by little he felt his fingers slipping from the edge of the
bunk. He shut his teeth hard, and tried to get a firmer grip. At
that moment the boat seemed to be lifted high into the air, and
poised there for a breathless second. Then with a shock that bumped
Larry’s head against the floor, it descended and and stopped as if
wedged on the rocks at the bottom, with a sound like a violent
explosion right underneath the cabin.

Larry, stupified by the crash, realized vaguely that the boat had
struck something and was held fast. In his confusion he thought she
had gone to the bottom, but he was satisfied that he was no longer
being pounded about the cabin. And presently as his mind cleared a
little, and he could hear the roar of the waves with an occasional
trickle of water down the companionway, he reached the conclusion
that they were not at the bottom of the sea. Nor did he care very
much one way or the other at that time. It was pitch dark in the
cabin, and as he was utterly worn out, he closed his eyes and lay
still, a big trembling dog nestling against him on either side. And
presently he and his two companions were sleeping the dreamless
sleep of the exhausted.




                             CHAPTER II

                       THE HOME ON THE ROCKS


It seemed only a moment later that Larry was roused by a thumping on
the planks over his head. Half awake, and shivering with cold, he
rubbed his eyes and tried to think where he was. Everything about
the cabin could be seen now, a ray of light streaming in through the
round port. For a little time he could not recall how he happened to
be lying on the cold floor and not in his bunk; but the presence of
the two dogs, still lying beside him, helped to freshen his memory.

The thumping on the deck seemed to have a familiar sound; there was
somebody walking about up there. Some one else must have been as
lucky as he in escaping the storm. And presently he heard some one
come clumping down the companionway stairs. The dogs, who had been
listening intently with cocked ears to the approaching footsteps,
sprang across the cabin wagging their tails and whining, and a
moment later old Martin stood in the doorway. He greeted the dogs
with a shout of surprise and welcome, followed by another even
louder shout when his eyes found Larry. For once the reserved old
hunter relaxed and showed the depths of his nature. He literally
picked the astonished boy up in his arms and danced about the little
room with delight.

“Oh, but I am sure glad to see you, boy,” he said, when he finally
let Larry down on his feet. “I didn’t suppose for a minute that I
should ever see you or any one else here again--not even the dogs. I
thought that you and everybody else went over the side when the
first big wave struck us.”

“Why, where are all the rest of them, and why is the boat so still?”
Larry asked, eagerly.

The old man’s face grew grave at once at the questions.

“Come out on deck and you can see for yourself,” he said quietly,
and led the way up the companionway.

With his head still ringing, and with aching limbs and sore spots
all over his body from the effects of bumping about the night
before, Larry crawled up the companionway. He could hear the waves
roaring all about them, and yet the boat was as stationary as a
house. What could it mean?

When he reached the deck the explanation was quickly apparent. The
boat was wedged hard and fast in a crevice of rock, her deck several
feet above the water, and just below the level of the rocky cliff of
the shore. She had been picked up bodily by the tremendous comber
and flung against the cliff, and luckily for them, had been jammed
into a crevice that prevented her slipping back into the ocean and
sinking. For her bottom and her port side were stove in, and she was
completely wrecked.

For a few minutes the boy stood gazing in mute astonishment. Old
Martin also stood silently looking about him. Then he offered an
explanation.

“’Tisn’t anything short of a miracle, I should say,” he explained to
Larry. “I have heard of some such things happening, but I never
believed that they did really. You see the waves just washed
everything overboard--captain, crew, masts, everything--except you and
me, and the two dogs. It washed me just as it did you, but I went
down the after hatchway by luck, and I hung on down there in the
companionway until the thing struck. But all the time that the waves
were washing over us we were being driven along toward this ledge of
rock full tilt. And when we were flung against this rock we should
by good rights, have been battered to kindling wood at one blow, and
then have slipped back into the water and sunk.

“But right here is the curious part of it all. Just as she got to
the foot of this cliff, an unusually big comber must have caught
her, raised her up in its arms fifteen or twenty feet higher than
the usual wave would have done, and just chucked her up on the side
of this bluff out o’ harm’s way--at least for the time being. The
sharp edge of the ledge happened to be such a shape that it held her
in place like the barb of a fish-hook. And all that the smaller
waves could do was to pound away at the lower side of her, without
hurting her enough to make her fall to pieces.

“But of course they’ll get her after a while--almost any hour for
that matter; for this storm is a long way from being blown out yet,
I’m afraid. And so it’s up to us to just get as much food and other
things unloaded and up away from this shore line as fast as we can.
Most of the stores are forward, and that is where she is stove in
the least.

“I suppose we’ve got to take off five minutes and cram a little cold
food into ourselves, so that we can work faster and longer. For we
surely have got to work for our lives to-day. If this boat should
suddenly take it into her head to slide off into the ocean again, as
she may do at any minute, we’re goners, even if we are left on
shore, unless we get a winter’s supply unloaded and stored on the
rocks. For we are a long way from civilization, I can tell you.”

With that Martin rushed Larry to the galley, dug out some bread,
cold meat, and a can of condensed milk. And, grudging every minute’s
delay, they stood among the wreckage of the once beautiful cabin,
cramming down their cold breakfast as hastily as possible. In the
excitement Larry forgot his bruises and sore spots.

As soon as they had finished Martin hurried the boy to the forward
store-room door, bursting it open with a heavy piece of iron.

“Now pick up anything that you can handle,” he instructed, “run with
it up on deck, and throw it on to the bank. I’ll take the heavier
things. But work as hard and as fast as you can, for our lives
depend upon it.”

For the next two hours they worked with furious energy rushing back
and forth from the store-rooms, staggering up the tilted steps to
the deck, and hurling the boxes across the few feet that separated
the boat from the ledge. Every few minutes Martin would leap across
the gap, and hastily toss the boxes that had been landed further up
on the shore, to get them out of the way for others that were to
follow.

The enormous strength and endurance of the old hunter were shown by
the amount he accomplished in those two hours. Boxes and kegs, so
heavy that Larry could hardly budge them, he seized and tossed
ashore in tireless succession, only pausing once long enough to
throw off his jacket and outer shirt. For the perspiration was
running off his face in streams, despite the fact that the air was
freezing cold.

Fortunately most of the parcels were relatively small, as they had
been prepared for the prospective inland hunting excursion which was
to have been made on sledges. Many of the important articles were in
small cans, and Larry rushed these ashore by the armful. He was
staggering, and gasping for breath at times, and once he stumbled
and fell half way down a stairway from sheer exhaustion. But he had
caught Martin’s spirit of eager haste, and although the fall had
shaken him up considerably, he picked himself up and went on as fast
as his weary limbs would carry him.

At last Martin paused, wiping his face with his coat sleeve. “Sit
down and rest,” he said to the boy. “We’ve got a whole winter’s
supply on shore there now, if food alone was all we needed. So we
can take a little more time about the rest of the things; and while
you rest I’ll rig up some tackle for getting what we can of the
heavier things ashore. You’ve done pretty well, for a city boy,” he
added.

Then he went below, and Larry heard the sounds of blows and cracking
timber. Presently Martin appeared, dragging some heavy planks after
him. With these he quickly laid a bridge from the deck to the shore.
Then he hunted out some long ropes and pulleys, and, carrying them
to a tree far up on the bank, he rigged a block and tackle between
this anchorage and the yacht.

“Now we’re ready for the heavy things,” he said.

With this new contrivance nothing seemed too big to handle. Martin
and Larry would roll and push the heavy cases into a companionway,
or near a hatch, and then both would seize the rope, and hand over
hand would work the heavy object up to the deck across the bridge,
and finally far out on shore. In this way the greater part of
everything movable had been transferred from the boat by the middle
of the afternoon; but not until the last of the more precious
articles had been disposed of did Martin think of food, although
they had breakfasted at daylight.

In the excitement Larry, too, had forgotten his hunger; but now a
gnawing sensation reminded him that he was famished. Martin was “as
hungry as a wolf in winter” he admitted. But he did not stop to eat.
Calling the dogs and filling his pockets with biscuit to munch as he
walked, he started out along the rocky shore of the inlet, to see if
by any chance some survivor had washed ashore. Meanwhile Larry built
a big fire at the edge of the woods to act as a signal, and to keep
himself warm.

In two hours the old man returned from his fruitless search. He had
found some wreckage strewn among the rocks, but no sign of a living
thing. “And now we must get these things under cover,” he said,
indicating the pile of stores.

For this purpose he selected a knoll some little distance from the
shore above where any waves could possibly reach. Over this he laid
a floor of planks, and spread a huge canvas over the boards. Then
they began the task of piling all the landed goods on top of this,
laying them up neatly so as to occupy as little space as possible,
and over this great mound of food-boxes, gun-cases, canned goods,
and miscellaneous objects, they pulled a huge canvas deck covering.

By the time they had finished the daylight was beginning to wane.
Taking the hint from the approaching darkness, Martin dug into the
mass of packages and produced a small silk tent, which he set up
under one of the scrub trees which was sheltered by a big rock well
back from the shore.

“Take that axe,” he told Larry, pointing to a carefully forged
hunting axe that had been landed with the other things, “and collect
all the wood you can before dark.”

Larry, scarcely able to stand, looked wistfully at the yacht. “The
cabin is dry in there,” he suggested, “why don’t we sleep in there
to-night?”

Old Martin shook his head. “I don’t dare risk it,” he said. “I am
tired, and I’d sleep too soundly. I don’t think I’d wake up, no
matter what happened. And something may happen to-night. The storm
is still brewing, and the waves are still so high that they pound
the old hull all the time. A little more hammering and she may go to
pieces. We couldn’t tell from the noise whether the storm was coming
up or not, because there is so much pounding all the time anyway.
And wouldn’t it be a fine thing for us to find ourselves dropped
into the ocean after we have just finished getting ourselves and our
things safely ashore? No, you get the wood and I’ll give you a
sample of the out-door suppers that we are likely to have together
every night for the next few months.”

Larry picked up the axe and dragged his weary feet off to the
thicker line of trees a short distance away. There was really little
use for the axe, as the woods were filled with fallen trunks and
branches that could be gathered for the picking up. So he spared
himself the exertion of chopping and began dragging branches and
small logs to the tent.

He found that the old hunter, while he was collecting the wood, had
unearthed a cooking outfit, and had pots, pans, and kettles strewn
about ready for use. Best of all he had hunted out two fur sleeping
bags, and had placed a pile of blankets in the little tent, which
looked very inviting to the weary boy.

Martin saw his wistful look and chuckled. “Too tired to eat I
suppose?” he inquired.

“Well, pretty near it,” Larry confessed. “I was never half so tired
in my whole life.”

“All right,” said Martin; “you’ve worked like a real man to-day. So
you just crawl into those blankets and have a little snooze while I
and the doggies get the supper. I’ll call you when the things are
ready.”

“Don’t you ever get tired, _ever_, Martin?” Larry asked as he flung
himself down. But if Martin answered his question he did not hear
it. He was asleep the moment he touched the blankets.




                            CHAPTER III

                          THE FIRST SUPPER


The next thing Larry knew he was being roused by old Martin’s
vigorous shakes. Something cold was pressing against his cheek,--the
black muzzle of one of the malamoots. Martin and the big dog were
standing over him, the man laughing and the dog wagging his bushy
tail. It seemed to the boy that he had scarcely closed his eyes, but
when he had rubbed them open he knew that he must have been asleep
some little time, for many things seemed changed.

It was night now, and the stars were out. But inside the tent it was
warm and cozy, for before the open flap a cheerful fire was burning.
The odor of coffee reached his nostrils and he could hear the bacon
frying over the fire, and these things reminded him that he was
hungry again.

“Sit right up to the table and begin,” Martin said to him, pointing
to a row of cooking utensils and two tin plates on the ground in
front of the tent. “Every one for himself, and Old Nick take the
hindmost.”

No second invitation was necessary. In a moment he was bending over
a plate heaped with bacon and potatoes, while the big malamoots sat
watching him wistfully keeping an expectant eye on Martin as he
poured the coffee. Such potatoes, such bacon, and such coffee the
boy had never tasted. Even the soggy bread which Martin had improved
by frying in some bacon fat, seemed delicious. This being
shipwrecked was not so bad after all.

Old Martin, seated beside him and busy with his heaping plate seemed
to read his thoughts.

“Not such a bad place, is it?” he volunteered presently.

“Bad?” the boy echoed. “It’s about the best place I ever saw. Only
perhaps it will get lonesome if we have to wait long,” he added
thoughtfully.

“Wait?” repeated Martin, poising his fork in the air. “Wait for who
and for what, do you suppose, boy?”

“Well, aren’t we going to wait for some one to come for us?” the boy
inquired.

Old Martin emptied his plate, drank his third cup of coffee, and
threw a couple of sticks on the fire before answering.

“If we waited for some one to come for us,” he said presently and in
a very serious tone, “we’d be waiting here until all these
provisions that we landed to-day are gone. And there’s a good full
year’s supply for us two up there under the canvas. Did you suppose
we are going to _wait_ here?”

The boy looked thoughtful.

“But we can’t get the yacht off the rocks, and she’d sink if we did.
And anyhow you couldn’t sail her home. You told me only yesterday
that you didn’t know a yacht from a battleship, Martin.”

“I told you the truth, at that,” Martin chuckled. “But I’m something
of a navigator all the same. I can navigate a craft as well as poor
old Captain Roberts himself, only I use a different craft, and I
navigate her on land. And, what’s more to the point, I’ve got the
land to do it on, the craft, and the crew.” And Martin pointed
successively at the pile of supplies in the distance, the two dogs,
and Larry.

“I don’t understand at all what you mean,” the boy declared; “tell
me what you intend to do, Martin, won’t you?”

“Why, boy, if I started in to tell you now you’d be asleep before I
could get well into the story,” said the old hunter.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the boy protested. “I never was more wide awake in
my life. I feel as if I could do another day’s work right now.”

“That’s the meat and potatoes and coffee,” old Martin commented.
“It’s marvellous what fuel will do for a tired engine. Well, if you
can keep awake long enough I’ll tell you just what we are going to
do in the next few weeks--or months, maybe.

“Here we are stranded away up on the Labrador coast, at least two or
three hundred miles from the nearest settlement, perhaps even
farther than that. And the worst of it is that I haven’t the least
idea where that nearest settlement is. It may be on the coast,
somewhat nearer than I think; and then again it may be ’cross
country inland still farther away than I judge. What we’ve got to do
is to make up our minds where we think that settlement is, and find
it. And we’ve got to go to it by land and on foot.”

“On foot!” Larry cried in amazement. “Three or four hundred miles on
foot in the winter time in a strange country where nobody lives!”

“That’s the correct answer,” the hunter replied: “and we’re two of
the luckiest dogs in the world to have the _chance_ to do it in the
style we can. If we hadn’t been given the chance to save all that
plunder from the ship to-day we would be far better off to be in the
bottom of the ocean with Mr. Ware and the other poor fellows. But we
had the luck, and now we have a good even fighting chance to get
back home. But it means work--work and hardships, such as you never
dreamed of, boy. And yet we’ll do it, or I’ll hand in my commission
as a land pilot.

“Did you notice those cans of stuff that you were throwing ashore
to-day--did you notice anything peculiar about those cans?” Martin
asked, a moment later.

“E--er, no I didn’t,” Larry hesitated. “Unless it was that some of
the bigger ones seemed lighter than tin cans of stuff usually do.”

“That’s the correct answer again,” the old man nodded; “that’s the
whole thing. They _were_ lighter, for the very good reason that they
are not made of tin. They are aluminum cans. They cost like the very
sin, those cans do, many times more than tin, you know. But Mr. Ware
didn’t have to think about such a small thing as cost, and when he
planned this hunting trip, where every ounce that we would have to
haul by hand or with the dogs had to be considered, he made
everything just the lightest and best that money could get it made.
If there was a way of getting anything better, or more condensed,
whether it was food or outfit, he did it. And you and I will
probably owe our lives to this hobby of his, poor man.

“Among that stuff that we unloaded to-day there are special
condensed foods, guns, tents, and outfits, just made to take such a
forced tramping trip through the wilderness as we are to take. You
see Mr. Ware planned to go on a long hunt back into the interior of
this land, a thing that has never been done at this time of year to
my knowledge. And as no one knows just what the conditions are
there, he had his outfit made so that he could travel for weeks, and
carry everything that he needed along with him.

“So it’s up to us to take the things that Mr. Ware had made, and
which we are lucky enough to have saved, and get back to the land
where people live. In my day I have undertaken just as dangerous,
and probably difficult things in the heart of winter; only on those
trips I didn’t have any such complete equipment as we have here.

“Why, look at that sleeping bag, for example,” the old man
exclaimed, pointing to one of the bags lying in the tent. “My
sleeping outfit, when I hiked from upper Quebec clear to the shore
of old Hudson’s Bay in the winter, consisted of a blanket. Whenever
my fire got low at night I nearly froze. But mind you, I could lie
out of doors in one of these fur bags without a fire on the coldest
night, and be warm as a gopher. They are made of reindeer skin, fur
inside, and are lined with the skin of reindeer fawn. So there are
two layers of the warmest skin and fur known, between the man inside
and the cold outside. Those bags will be a blessing to us every
minute. For when we strike out across this country we don’t know
what kind of a land we may get into. We may find timber region all
the way, and if we do there will be no danger of our freezing. But
it’s more than likely that we shall strike barren country part of
the time where there will be no fire-wood; and then we will
appreciate these fur bags. For I don’t care how cold it gets or how
hard it blows, we can burrow down into the snow and crawl into the
bags, and always be sure of a warm place to sleep.

“Then again, the very luckiest thing for us was the saving of those
two dogs,” Martin continued. “If they had gone overboard with the
other twelve I should be feeling a good deal sadder to-night than I
am. For there is nothing to equal a malamoot dog for hauling loads
through this country in winter. Look at this fellow,” he said
indicating one of the big shaggy dogs curled up a few feet from the
tent, caring nothing for the biting cold. “There doesn’t seem to be
anything very remarkable about him, does there? And yet that fellow
can haul a heavier load on a sled, and haul it farther every day,
than I can. And his weight is less than half what mine is.

“The dogs that Mr. Ware had selected were all veteran sledge dogs,
and picked because they had proved their metal. So we’ll give this
fellow a load of two hundred and fifty pounds to haul. And he could
do better than that I know if he had to.”

The wind, which had died down a little at dusk, had gradually risen
and was now blowing hard again, and fine flakes of snow and sleet
hissed into the camp-fire. The rock which sheltered the tent
protected it from the main force of the blast, but Larry could hear
it lashing its way through the spruce trees with an ominous roar.
Martin rose and examined the fastenings of the tent, tightened a
rope here and there, and then returned to his seat on the blankets.

“We can’t start to-morrow if it storms like this,” Larry suggested
presently.

“Well, we can’t start to-morrow anyhow,” the old trapper answered.
“And we surely can’t start until there is more snow. How are we
going to haul a pair of toboggans over the snow if there is no snow
to be hauled over, I’d like to know? But there is no danger about
the lack of snow. There’ll be plenty of it by the time we are ready
to start.”

“And when will that be?” the boy asked.

“In about ten days, I think,” Martin answered, “----that is, if you
have learned to shoot a rifle, harness the dogs, pitch a camp, set
snares, walk on snow-shoes, and carry a pretty good-sized pack on
your back,” he added, looking at Larry out of the corner of his
eyes. “Did you ever shoot a rifle?”

“Sure I have,” the boy answered proudly; “and I hit the mark,
too--sometimes.”

“I suppose you shot a Flobert twenty-two, at a mark ten feet away,”
Martin commented with a little smile. “Well, all that helps. But on
this trip you are not going to hit the mark sometimes: it must be
every time. And the ‘mark’ will be something for the camp kettle to
keep the breath of life in us. I’ve been turning over in my mind
to-day the question of what kind of a gun you are going to tote on
this trip. We’ve got all kinds to select from up there under the
canvas, from elephant killers to squirrel poppers, for Mr. Ware did
love every kind of shooting iron. I’ve picked out yours, and
to-morrow you will begin learning to use it--learning to shoot quick
and straight--straight, every time. For we won’t have one bullet to
waste after we leave here.”

Larry fairly hugged himself. Think of having a rifle of his very
own, a real rifle that would kill things, with the probability of
having plenty of chances for using it! One of his fondest dreams was
coming true. The old hunter read his happiness in his face, and
without a word rose and left the tent. When he returned he carried
in his hand a little weapon which, in its leather case, seemed like
a toy about two feet long. Handing this to Larry he said, simply:
“Here’s your gun.”

The boy’s countenance fell. To be raised to the height of bliss and
expectation, and then be handed a pop-gun, was a cruel joke. Without
removing the gun from its case he tossed it contemptuously into the
blankets behind him.

“Mr. Ware killed a moose with it last winter,” the old hunter
commented, suspecting the cause of the boy’s disappointment. “And it
shoots as big a ball, and shoots just as hard as the gun I am going
to carry,” he added. “You’d better get acquainted with it.”

There was no doubting the old man’s sincerity now, and Larry picked
up the gun and examined it.

It was a curious little weapon, having two barrels placed one above
the other, and with a stock like a pistol. Attached to the
pistol-like handle was a skeleton stock made of aluminum rods, and
so arranged that it folded against the under side of the barrels
when not in use. The whole thing could be slipped into a leather
case not unlike the ordinary revolver holster, and carried with a
strap over the shoulder. When folded in this way it was only two
feet long, and had the appearance of the toy gun for which Larry had
mistaken it.

Yet it was anything but a toy. The two barrels were of different
calibre, the upper one being the ordinary .22, while the lower one,
as Martin had stated, was of large calibre and chambered for a
powerful cartridge.

The old hunter watched the boy eagerly examining the little gun,
opening it and squinting through the barrels, aiming it at imaginary
objects, and strutting about with it slung from his shoulder in the
pure joy that a red-blooded boy finds in the possession of a fire
arm. Then, when Larry’s excitement cooled a little, he took the gun,
and explained its fine points to his eager pupil.

“From this time on,” he began, “I want you to remember everything I
am going to tell you just as nearly as you can, not only about this
gun, but everything else. For you’ve got to cram a heap of knowledge
into your head in the next few days, and I haven’t time to say
things twice.

“This gun was made specially for Mr. Ware after his own design and
to fit his own idea. He wanted a gun that was as light as possible
and could be carried easily, and at the same time be adapted to all
kinds of game, big and little. This upper barrel, the smaller one
you see, shoots a cartridge that will kill anything up to the size
of a jack rabbit, and is as accurate a shooter as any gun can be
made. Yet the cartridges are so small that a pocket full will last a
man a whole season.

“Now the best rule in all hunting is to use the smallest bullet that
will surely kill the game you are aiming at, and in every country
there are always ten chances to kill small things to one chance at
the bigger game. Up in this region, for example, there will be
flocks of ptarmigan, the little northern grouse, and countless
rabbits that we shall need for food, but which we couldn’t afford to
waste heavy ammunition on. And this smaller barrel is the one to use
in getting them.

“If you used the big cartridge when you found a flock of these
ptarmigans sitting on a tree, the noise of the first shot would
probably frighten them all away, to say nothing of the fact that the
big ball would tear the little bird all to pieces, and make it
worthless for food. With the .22 you can pop them over one at a time
without scaring them, and without spoiling the meat.

“But suppose, when you were out hunting for ptarmigan or rabbits you
came upon a deer, or even a moose. All right, you’ve got something
for him, too, and right in the same gun. All you have to do is to
shift the little catch on the hammer here which connects with the
firing-pin in the lower barrel, draw a bead, and you knock him down
dead with the big bullet--as Mr. Ware did last fall up in New
Brunswick. There will be a louder report, and a harder kick, but you
won’t notice either when you see the big fellow roll over and kick
his legs in the air.”

The very suggestion of such a possibility was too much for the boy’s
imagination. “Do you really think that I may kill a deer, or a
moose, Martin?” he asked eagerly. “Do you, Martin?”

“Perhaps,” the old man assented, “if you will remember all I tell
you. But first of all let’s learn all we can about the thing you are
going to kill it with.

“Mr. Ware and I had many long talks, and tried many experiments
before he could decide upon the very best size of cartridge for this
larger barrel. You see there scores of different kinds and sizes to
choose from. There are cartridges almost as long and about the same
shape as a lead pencil, with steel jacketed bullets that will travel
two or three miles, and go through six feet thickness of wood at
short range. It is the fad among hunters these days to use that
kind. But if a man is a real hunter he doesn’t need them.

“Mr. Ware was a real hunter. When he pulled the trigger he knew just
where the bullet was going to land. And when a man is that kind of a
shot he doesn’t have to use a bullet that will shoot through six
feet of pine wood. So he picked out one of the older style of
cartridges, one that we call the .38-40, which is only half as long
as the lead-pencil kind. By using a steel jacketed bullet and
smokeless powder this cartridge is powerful enough to kill any kind
of game in this region, if you strike the right spot.

“So don’t get the idea, just because this gun won’t shoot a bullet
through an old fashioned battleship, that it’s a plaything. It will
penetrate eighteen inches of pine wood, and the force of its blow is
very nearly that of a good big load of hay falling off a sled. This
little three-pound gun--just a boy’s sparrow gun to look at--shoots
farther and hits harder than the best rifle old Daniel Boone ever
owned. And yet Boone and his friends cleaned out all the Indians and
most of the big game in several States. So you see you’ve got the
better of Boone and all the great hunters and Indian killers of his
day--that is, as far as the gun is concerned. To-morrow I will begin
teaching you how to use it as a hunter should; but now we had better
turn in, for there are hard days ahead of us.”

And so Larry crawled into his snug fur-lined bag, too excited to
wish to sleep, but so exhausted by the hard day’s work that his eyes
would not stay open.




                             CHAPTER IV

                        LESSONS IN PILOTING


At daylight the next morning old Martin roused the boy, reminding
him that he “was to begin learning his trade” that day. “And there
are many things to learn about this land-piloting, too,” he told
him. Meanwhile the old hunter took the axe and went into the woods
for fuel while Larry was putting on his shoes and his coat--the only
garments he had removed on going to bed the night before.

The air was very cold and everything frozen hard, and Larry’s teeth
were chattering before Martin returned and started the fire. “Now
notice how I lay these sticks and make this fire,” Martin
instructed. “I am making it to cook our breakfast over, so I’ll
build it in a very different way from what I should if I only wanted
it for heating our tent. Learning how to build at least three
different kinds of fires is a very important part of your
education.”

The old man selected two small logs about four feet long and seven
inches in diameter. He laid these side by side on the ground,
separating them at one end a distance of about six inches and at the
other end something over a foot. In the space between the logs he
laid small branches and twigs, and lighted them, and in a jiffy had
a hot fire going.

Larry noticed that Martin had placed the logs so that they lay at
right angles to the direction from which the wind was blowing; and
now as the heat thawed out the ground, the hunter took a sharp
pointed stick and dug away the earth from under the log almost its
whole length on the windward side. The wind, sucking in under this,
created a draught from beneath, which made the fire burn fiercely.

Then Martin placed two frying pans filled with slices of ham and
soggy, grease-covered bread over the fire, the tops of the two logs
holding the pans rigidly in place. Next he took the wide-bottomed
coffee pot, filled it with water, threw in a handful of coffee, and
placed the pot at the end where the logs were near enough together
to hold it firmly.

“Pretty good stove, isn’t it,” he commented, when he had finished.

“You see that kind of a fire does several things that you want it
to, and doesn’t do several others that you don’t want. It makes all
the heat go right up against the bottom of the pans where you need
it most, and it only takes a little wood to get a lot of heat. What
is more, the sides of the logs keep the heat from burning your face
and your hands when you have to stir things, as a big camp-fire
would. You can always tell a woodsman by the kind of fire he
builds.”

Presently the coffee boiled over and Martin set it off, and by that
time the ham and the bread were ready. And while they were eating
their breakfast he set a pail of water on the fire to heat. “That’s
to wash the dishes in,” he said. “A real woodsman washes his dishes
as soon as he finishes each meal--does it a good deal more
religiously than he washes his face or his hands, I fear.”

When breakfast was finished, and the last dish cleaned, Martin said:
“Now you’ll have an hour’s practice at target-shooting. Take your
gun and come along.”

He led the way to the pile of boxes, and hunted out three or four
solid looking cases. These were filled with paper boxes containing
cartridges--enough to supply an army, Larry thought. Tearing some of
these open, Martin instructed the boy to fill the right hand pocket
of his jacket with the little twenty-twos. “And always remember that
they are in that pocket and nowhere else,” he instructed.

Next he opened a bundle and took out a belt on which there were a
row of little leather pockets with snap fasteners. He filled these
pockets with the larger calibre cartridges, six to each pocket, and
instructed Larry to buckle it on over his coat. Then he led the way
to a level piece of ground just above the camp, and having paced off
fifty yards he fastened the round top of a large tin can against a
tree and stepped back to the firing line.

“I’ll try one shot first to see if the sights are true,” he said, as
he slipped a cartridge into each barrel. Then raising the gun to his
shoulder he glanced through the sights and fired. “Go and see where
that hit,” he told the boy.

Larry, running to the target, found the little hole of the .22
bullet almost in the center of the tin, and shouted his discovery
exultantly. Martin had fired so quickly after bringing the gun to
his shoulder that the boy could scarcely believe his eyes, although
the result of the shot did not seem to surprise the old hunter.

“Don’t try the .38 yet,” he instructed, handing Larry the gun. “Fire
twenty shots with the .22, and go and see where each shot strikes as
soon as you fire and have loaded. And don’t forget to bring the gun
to half-cock, and to load before you leave your tracks. That is one
of the main things to remember. After a little practice you will do
it instinctively, so that you will always have a loaded gun in your
hands. It may save your life sometime when you run up to a buck that
you have knocked over and only stunned.”

The boy took the gun and began his lesson, the hunter leaving him
without waiting to see how he went about it. A few minutes later,
when Larry had finished the twenty rounds, he found the old man
going through the dismantled yacht.

“Just making a final inspection to see if there is anything left
that we may need,” the old hunter said. “There’s a king’s ransom in
here yet, but we can’t use it on our trip, and in another
twenty-four hours it may be on the bottom of the ocean.”

Larry, trying to conceal the pride he felt, handed Martin the tin
target he had brought with him. The old hunter examined it gravely,
counting the number of bullet holes carefully. There were ten of
them, including the one Martin had made.

“Eleven misses in twenty shots,” he commented, simply.

The boy, who was swelling with pride, looked crestfallen.

“But the last five all hit it,” he explained. “At first I hit all
around it, and then I hit it almost every other time, and at last I
hit it five times straight.”

“Put up a new target and try ten more,” was Martin’s only comment.
But when Larry had gone he chuckled to himself with satisfaction.
“Some shooting for a city boy!” he said to himself; “but I won’t
spoil him by telling him so.”

When Larry returned with the second target there were seven bullet
holes in it; but still the old hunter made no comment on the score.
“Now go back and try ten of the big ones, and remember that you are
shooting at big game this time,” he admonished.

Larry returned slowly to his shooting range. Martin was a very hard
and unreasonable task-master, he decided. But, remembering that he
had hit the mark so frequently before, he resolved to better his
score this time. This was just the resolution Martin had hoped he
would make.

So the boy fastened the target in place, adjusted the hammer for
firing the larger cartridge. Then he shut his teeth together hard,
took a careful but quick aim, for Martin had explained that slow
shooting was not the best for hunting, and pulled the trigger. The
sound of the loud report startled him, and his shoulder was jerked
back by the recoil. It didn’t hurt, exactly, for the aluminum butt
plate was covered with a springy rubber pad; but it showed him very
forcibly what a world of power there must be in those stubby little
cylinders of brass and lead.

He forgot his astonishment, however, when on going to the target, he
found that the big bullet had pierced the tin almost in the center;
and as he stood gazing at the hole he heard a low chuckle that
cleared away all his dark clouds. Old Martin had slipped up behind
him quietly; and there was no mistaking the old hunter’s wrinkled
smile of satisfaction.

“Now you see what you can do with her,” the old man said, his eyes
twinkling. “If that tin had been a moose’s forehead he’d be a dead
moose, sure enough. Did the noise and the kick surprise you?”

“Yes, it did,” Larry admitted honestly; “but it won’t next time--it
never will again. And I am going to kill just nine more moose with
these cartridges.”

“That’s the way to talk,” said Martin, with frank admiration; “after
a few more shots you’ll get used to the recoil, and pretty soon you
won’t even feel it. But you musn’t expect to make nine more
bull’s-eyes just yet.”

The old hunter went back to his work at the pile of plunder under
the big canvas, and Larry fired his nine remaining rounds. Then he
sought the old man again, but as Martin asked no question about the
result of the shots, Larry did not volunteer any information.
Presently Martin looked up from his work.

“I suppose you’ve cleaned the rifle now that you have finished
practice for the morning?” he inquired.

Larry shook his head.

“Well that’s the very first thing to do, now, and always,” said the
hunter.

It took quite a time for the boy to clean and oil the gun so that he
felt it would pass inspection, and when he returned to Martin the
old man was busy with an assortment of interesting looking parcels,
placing them in separate piles. He was making notes on a piece of
paper, while both the dogs were sniffing about the packages, greatly
interested.

The old hunter sent Larry to bring two of the toboggans that he had
saved from the yacht. They looked like ordinary toboggans to the
boy, but Martin called his attention to some of their good points
which he explained while he was packing them with what he called an
“experimental load,” made up from the pile of parcels he had been
sorting.

Each of the toboggans had fastened to its top a stout canvas bag,
the bottom of which was just the size of the top of the sled. The
sides of the bag were about four feet high, each bag forming, in
effect, a canvas box fastened securely to the toboggan. Martin
pointed out the advantages of such an arrangement in one terse
sentence. “When that bag is tied up you can’t lose anything off your
sled without losing the sled itself,” he said. “And if you had ever
done much sledging,” he added, “you’d know what that means.”

“The usual way of doing it,” Martin explained, “is to pack your sled
as firmly as you can, and then draw a canvas over it and lash it
down. And that is a very good way, too. But this bag arrangement
beats it in every way, particularly in taking care of the little
things that are likely to spill out and be lost. With this bag there
is no losing anything, big or little. You simply pack the big things
on the bottom, and then instead of having to fool around half an
hour fastening the little things on and freezing your fingers while
you do it, you throw them all in on top, close up the end of the
bag, and strap it down tight. You see it will ride then wherever the
sled goes, for it is a part of the sled itself.”

Larry noticed that most of the larger parcels on the sled were done
up in long, slender bags, and labeled. Martin explained that the
bags were all made of waterproof material, and carefully sealed, and
that narrow bags could be packed more firmly and rode in place
better than short, stubby ones. A large proportion of these bags
were labeled “Pemmican” and the name excited the boy’s curiosity.

“It’s something good to eat, I know,” he said; “but what is it made
of, Martin?”

“It’s an Indian dish that made it possible for Peary to reach the
Pole,” Martin assured him. “It is soup, and fish, and meat and
vegetables, and dessert, all in one--only it hasn’t hardly any of
those things in it. If you eat a chunk of it as big as your fist
every day and give the same sized chunk to your dog, you won’t need
any other kind of food, and your dog won’t. It has more heat and
nourishment in it, ounce for ounce, than any other kind of food ever
invented. That’s why I am going to haul so much of it on our sleds.”

While he was talking he had slit open one of the bags and showed
Larry the contents, which resembled rather dirty, tightly pressed
brown sugar.

“Gee, it looks good!” the boy exclaimed. “Let’s have some of it for
supper.”

“You needn’t wait for supper,” Martin told him. “Eat all you want of
it, we’ve got at least a ton more than we can carry away with us.”
And he cut off a big lump with his hunting knife and handed it to
the boy.

Larry’s mouth watered as he took it. He had visions of maple-sugar
feasts on this extra ton of Indian delicacy close at hand, as he
took a regular boy’s mouthful, for a starter. But the next minute
his expression changed to one of utmost disgust, and he ran to the
water pail to rinse his mouth. He paused long enough, however, to
hurl the remaining piece at the laughing hunter. But Martin ducked
the throw, while Kim and Jack, the dogs, raced after the lump, Kim
reaching it first and swallowing it at a gulp.

“What made you change your mind so suddenly?” the old hunter asked
when he could get his breath. “You seemed right hungry a minute ago,
and I expected to see you eat at least a pound or two.”

“Eat that stuff!” Larry answered, between gulps from the water
bucket. “I’d starve to death before I’d touch another grain of it.”

“That’s what you think now,” the old man answered, becoming serious
again;--“that’s what I thought, too, the first time I tasted it. It
tasted to me then like a mixture of burnt moccasin leather and boot
grease. But wait until you have hit the trail for ten hours in the
cold, when you’re too tired to lift your feet from the ground, and
you’ll think differently. You’ll agree with me then that a chunk of
this pemmican as big as your two fists is only just one third big
enough, and tastes like the best maple sugar you ever ate.”

But the boy still made wry faces, and shook his head. “What do they
put into it to make it taste so?” he asked. “Or why don’t they
flavor it with something?”

“Oh, they flavor it,” Martin explained, laughing. “They flavor it
with grease poured all over it after they have dried the meat that
it is made of, and pounded it up into fine grains. But take my word
for it that when you try it next time, somewhere out there in the
wilderness two or three weeks from now, you’ll say that they flavor
it just right.”

“But we needn’t worry about that now,” he added. “What we need more
than anything else for to-night is a big lot of fire-wood, green and
dry both. Take the axe and get in all you can between now and night.
I want plenty of wood to use in teaching you how to make two other
kinds of fires. Do you suppose you could cut down a tree about a
foot in diameter?”

Larry thought he could. Some lumbermen in the Adirondacks had shown
him how a tree could be felled in any direction by chopping a deep
notch low down, and another higher up on the opposite side. He knew
also about stepping to one side and away from the butt to avoid the
possible kick-back of the trunk when the tree fell.

So he selected a tree of the right size as near the tent as he could
find one, felled it after much futile chopping and many rests for
breath, and cut it into logs about six feet long. When he had
finished he called the two dogs, put a harness on each, hitched them
up tandem, and fastened the hauling rope to the end of one of the
logs. Martin had suggested that he do this, so as to get accustomed
to driving the dogs, and get the big fellows accustomed to being
driven by him.

The dogs, full of energy were eager for the work, and at the word
sprang forward, yelping and straining at the straps, exerting every
ounce of strength in their powerful bodies. The log was a heavy one,
and at first they could barely move it; but after creeping along for
a few inches it gradually gained speed on the thin snow, and was
brought into camp on the run. Even in the excitement of shouting to
the struggling dogs and helping with an occasional push, Larry
noticed the intelligence shown by the animals in swinging from one
side to the other, feeling for the best position to get leverage,
and taking advantage of the likely places.

They seemed to enter into the spirit of the work, too, rushing madly
back to the woods after each log or limb had been deposited at the
tent, and waiting impatiently for Larry to make up the bundles of
wood and fasten the draw rope. Working at this high pressure the boy
and dogs soon had a huge pile of fire-wood at Martin’s disposal, and
by the time the old hunter had finished his task, had laid in a
three days’ supply.

“Now you build a ‘cooking fire,’ such as I made this morning, and
get supper going,” said Martin, coming over to the tent; “and while
you are doing that I’ll be fixing up another kind of a fire--one
called a ‘trapper’s fire,’ which is built for throwing heat into a
tent.”

The old hunter then drove two stakes into the ground directly in
front of the opening of the tent and six feet from it, the stakes
being about five feet apart and set at right angles to the open
flaps. Against these stakes he piled three of the green logs Larry
had cut, one on top of the other like the beginning of a log house,
and held them in place by two stakes driven in front, opposite the
two first stakes. Next he selected two green sticks about four
inches in diameter and three feet long, and placed them like the
andirons in a fireplace, the wall of logs serving as a reflecting
surface like the back wall of a chimney. Across these logs he now
laid a fire, just as one would in a fireplace.

Larry all this time had been busy getting the supper, Martin
offering a suggestion now and then. When he saw that the meal was
almost ready the old man spread a piece of canvas on the ground just
inside the opening of the tent and before the log fire he had laid,
and set out the plates and cups, and when Larry announced that the
feast was ready Martin lighted the fire in front of the logs.

He had a double motive in this--to show the boy how to make a heating
fire and to furnish heat for the evening. For the weather was
growing very cold, and he had some work that he wished to do which
would require light to guide his fingers and heat for keeping them
warm.

With the protection of the tent back of them and the roaring fire in
front they toasted their shins and ate leisurely. To Larry it all
seemed like one grand lark, and he said so.

“I’m afraid you will change your mind about it being such a lark
before we are through with it,” the old man said presently. “It
won’t be a lark for either of us. But I’m beginning to feel more
hopeful about it, now that I see that you can learn things, and are
willing to try.”

He lighted his pipe and smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes. Larry
too, was thoughtful, turning over in his mind the old hunter’s last
remark.

“And so you have been thinking all this time that I might be in the
way--that perhaps you would be better off if you were alone, and
didn’t have a boy like me on your hands?” the boy asked presently.

For a little time the old man did not answer, puffing his pipe and
gazing silently at the fire. At last he said:

“I couldn’t help feeling a little that way at first, Larry. The job
on our hands is one for a strong man, not for a city boy. But I’m
feeling different now that I see how you take hold and are willing
to work, and try to learn all the things I tell you. And wouldn’t it
be funny,” he added, with a twinkle in his kindly eye, “if,
sometime, I should get into trouble and you have to help me out of
it instead of my helping you all the time? A fellow can never tell
what strange things may happen on the trail; and that is one reason
why no man should start on a journey through the woods in the winter
time alone.”

Presently the old man knocked the ashes from his pipe and set about
cleaning the dishes, Larry helping him; but neither of them were in
talking mood, each busy with his own thoughts. When they had
finished the hunter said:

“Now I’ll show you how to make an Indian fire, the kind the Indian
still likes best of all, and the best kind to use when wood is
scarce or when you want to boil a pot of tea or get a quick meal.”

The old hunter then gathered an armful of small limbs, and laid them
on the ground in a circle like the spokes of a wheel, the butts
over-lapping at the center where the hub of the wheel would be. With
a few small twigs he lighted a fire where the butts joined, the
flames catching quickly and burning in a fierce vertical flame.

“This fire will make the most heat for the least amount of wood and
throw the heat in all directions,” Martin explained. “And that is
why it is the best kind of a fire for heating a round tent, such as
an Indian tepee.”

“But why did the Indian have to care about the amount of wood he
burned?” Larry asked. “He had all the wood he wanted, just for the
chopping of it, didn’t he?”

The old man smiled indulgently. “Yes, he surely had all the wood he
wanted just for the chopping--millions of cords of it. But how was he
going to chop it without anything to chop it with, do you think? You
forget that the old Indians didn’t have so much as a knife, let
alone an axe. And that explains the whole thing: that’s why the
Indian made small fires and built skin tepees instead of log houses.

“If you left your axe and your knife here at the tent and went into
the woods to gather wood, Larry, how long do you suppose it would
take you to collect a day’s supply for our big fire? You wouldn’t
have much trouble in getting a few armfuls of fallen and broken
branches but very soon you’d find the supply running short. The logs
would be too large to handle, and most of the limbs too big to
break. And so you would soon be cold and hungry, with a month’s
supply of dry timber right at your front dooryard.

“But it’s all so different when you can give a tap here and there
with your axe, or a few strokes with your hunting knife. And this
was just what the poor Indian couldn’t do; for he had no cutting
tool of any kind worth the name until the white man came. So he
learned to use little sticks for his fire, and built his house of
skins stretched over small poles.

“It is hard for us to realize that cutting down a tree was about the
hardest task an Indian could ever attempt. Why the strongest Indian
in the tribe, working as hard as he could with the best tool he
could find, couldn’t cut down a tree as quickly as you could with
your hunting knife. He could break rocks to pieces by striking them
with other rocks, and he could dig caves in the earth; but when it
came to cutting down a tree he was stumped. The big trees simply
stood up and laughed at him. No wonder he worshipped the forests and
the tree gods!

“Of course when the white man came and supplied axes, hatchets, and
knives, he solved the problem of fire-wood for the Indian. But he
never changed the Indian’s idea about small fires. Too many thousand
generations of Indian ancestors had been making that kind of a fire
all their lives; and the Indian is a great fellow to stick to fixed
habits. He adopted the steel hatchet and the knife, but he stuck to
his round fire and his round tepee.

“And yet, although he had never seen a steel hatchet until the white
man gave him one, he improved the design of the white man’s axe
right away. The white man’s hatchet was a broad-bladed, clumsy
thing, heavy to carry and hard to handle. The Indian designed a
thin, narrow-bladed, light hatchet--the tomahawk--that would bite
deeper into the wood and so cut faster than the white man’s thick
hatchet. And every woodsman now knows that for fast chopping, with
little work, a hatchet made on the lines of the tomahawk beats out
the other kind.”

The old man took his own hunting axe from the sheath at his belt and
held it up for inspection.

“You see it’s just a modified tomahawk,” he said, “with long blade
and thin head, and only a little toy axe, to look at. But it has cut
down many good-sized trees when I needed them, all the same. And the
axe you were using this afternoon, as you probably noticed, is
simply a bigger brother of this little fellow, exactly the same
shape. It’s the kind the trappers use in the far North, because it
will do all the work of a four-pound axe, and is only half as heavy.
We’ve got some of those big axes over there under the tarpaulin, but
we’ll leave them behind when we hit the trail, and take that small
one with us.”

While they were talking Martin had been getting out a parcel
containing clothing and odds and ends, and now he sat down before
the fire to “do some work” as he expressed it.

“If you’re not too sleepy to listen,” he said, “I’ll tell you a
story that I know about a little Algonquin Indian boy.”

Larry was never too tired to listen to Martin’s stories; and so he
curled up on a blanket before the fire, while the old man worked and
talked.




                             CHAPTER V

                   THE STORY OF WEEWAH THE HUNTER


It had been a hard day’s work for both of them, and strange as
everything was to Larry, and awful as the black woods seemed as he
peeped out beyond the light of the fire, he had a strange feeling of
security and contentment. It might be that there were terribly hard
days of toil and danger and privations ahead, but he was too cozily
situated now to let that worry him.

Besides he was feeling the satisfaction that every boy feels in the
knowledge that he has done something well. And even the exacting old
Martin, always slow to praise or even commend, had told him over his
cup of tea and his soup at supper, that he “would make a hunter of
him some day.” And what higher praise could a boy hope for?

“Nobody knows just how old Weewah was when he became a mighty
hunter,” Martin began presently, without looking up from his sewing,
“because Indians don’t keep track of those things as we white folks
do. But he couldn’t have been any older than you are, perhaps not
quite so old.

“He was old enough to know how to handle his bow and arrows, though,
to draw a strong enough bow to shoot an arrow clean through a
woodchuck or a muskrat, or even a beaver, although he had never
found the chance to try at the beaver. He carried his own tomahawk,
too--a new one that the factor at Hudson Bay Post had given him,--and
was eager to show his prowess with it on larger game.

“But the hunting was done by the grown up men of the village, who
thought Weewah too small to hunt anything larger than rabbits. Yet
there were other boys of his own age who found more favor in the
hunters’ eyes because they were larger than he. ‘Some day you will
be a hunter,’ they told him, ‘but now you are too small.’

“Weewah’s heart was big, even if his body was small. And so one day
he took all his long arrows, his strongest bow, and his tomahawk and
resolved to go into the big woods at some distance from the village,
and do something worthy of a hunter.

“It was winter time, and the snow on the ground was knee-deep with
just a little crust on it. On his snow-shoes Weewah glided through
the forest, noticing everything he passed and fixing it in his
memory instinctively so that he could be sure of finding the back
trail. For this day he meant to go deep, deep into the spruce swamp
in his hunting. There he would find game worthy of the bow of the
mighty hunter he intended to prove himself.

“The tracks of many animals crossed his path, little wood dwellers
such as rabbits and an occasional mink. But these did not interest
him to-day. He had brought his snares, of course, for he always
carried them; but to-day his heart was too full of a mighty ambition
to allow such little things as rabbit snares to interrupt his plans.

“Once he did stop when he saw, just ahead of him on the snow, a
little brown bunch of fur with two big brown eyes looking at him
wonderingly. In an instant he had drawn the poised arrow to his
cheek and released it with a twang. And a moment later the little
brown bunch of fur was in Weewah’s pouch, ready for making into
rabbit stew in the evening.

“Weewah took it as a good omen that he had killed the rabbit on the
very edge of the spruce swamp that he had selected for his hunting
ground. Soon he would find game more worthy of his arrows or his
axe. And so he was not surprised, even if his heart did give an
extra bound, when presently he came upon the track of a lynx. It was
a fresh track, too, and the footprints were those of a very big
lynx.

“Weewah knew all this the moment he looked at the tracks, just as he
knew a thousand other things that he had learned in the school of
observation. He knew also that in all probability the animal was not
half a mile away, possibly waiting in some tree, or crouching in
some bushes looking for ptarmigan or rabbit. He was sure, also, that
he could run faster on his snow-shoes than the lynx could in that
deep soft snow.

“So for several minutes he stood and thought as fast as he could.
What a grand day for him it would be if he could come back to the
village dragging a great lynx after him! No one would ever tell him
again that he was too small to be a hunter.

“But while he was sorely tempted to rush after the animal with the
possibility of getting a shot, or a chance for a blow of his axe, he
knew that this was not the surest way to get his prey. He had
discovered the hunting ground of the big cat, and he knew that there
was no danger of its leaving the neighborhood so long as the supply
of rabbits held out. By taking a little more time, then, Weewah knew
he could surely bring the fellow into camp. And so he curbed his
eagerness.

“Instead of rushing off along the trail, bow bent and arrow on the
string, he opened his pouch and took out a stout buckskin string--a
string strong enough to resist the pull of the largest lynx. In one
end of this he made a noose with a running knot. Next he cut a stout
stick three inches thick and as tall as himself. Then he walked
along the trail of the lynx for a little distance, looking sharply
on either side, until he found a low-hanging, thick bunch of spruce
boughs near which the animal had passed. Here the boy stopped and
cut two more strong sticks, driving them into the ground about two
feet apart, so that they stood three feet above the snow and right
in front of a low-hanging bunch of spruce boughs.

“At the top of each he had left a crotch, across which he now laid
his stick with the looped string dangling from the center. The
contrivance when completed looked like a great figure H, from the
cross-bar of which hung the loop just touching the top of the snow.

“Now Weewah carefully opened the loop of the noose until it was
large enough for the head of any lynx to pass through, and fastened
it deftly with twigs and blades of dead grass, so as to hold it in
place firmly. From its front the thing looked like a miniature
gallows--which, indeed, it was.

“Next Weewah took the rabbit from his pouch, and creeping under the
thicket carefully so as not to disturb his looped string, he placed
the still warm body an arm’s length behind the loop, propping the
head of the little animal up with twigs, to look as lifelike as
possible. In an hour, at most, the rabbit would freeze and stiffen,
and would then look exactly like a live rabbit crouching in the
bushes.

“Then the little Indian broke off branches, thrusting them into the
snow about the rabbit, until he had formed a little bower facing the
snare. Any animal attempting to seize it would thrust its own head
right through the fatal hangman’s loop.

“When Weewah had finished this task he gathered up his tomahawk and
bow and arrows, and started back along his own trail. He made no
attempt to cover up the traces of his work, as he would if trapping
a fox; for the lynx is a stupid creature, like all of his cousins of
the cat family, and will blunder into a trap of almost any kind.

“The little Indian hurried along until he reached the point from
which he had first crossed the lynx tracks. Here he turned sharply,
starting a great circle, which would be about a mile in diameter. He
did this to make sure that the lynx had not gone on farther than he
thought. If he found no sign of fresh tracks he could feel certain
that the animal was still close at hand.

“This took him several hours, and it was almost dark when he pulled
back the flap and entered his home lodge in the village. He was
tired, too, but his eyes shone with suppressed emotion.

“As soon as he entered his mother set before him a smoking bowl of
broth without a word of comment or a question as to what his luck
might have been in his rabbit hunting. His father was there, gorging
himself on fat beaver meat that he had just brought in; but neither
he, nor Weewah’s brothers and sisters, offered any comment at the
little boy’s entrance.

“It is not correct etiquette, in Algonquin families, to ask the
hunter what luck he has had until he has eaten. Even then a verbal
question is not asked. But when the repast is finished the Indian
woman takes a pouch of the hunter and turns its contents out upon
the floor.

“The emptiness of Weewah’s pouch spoke for itself, for he had flung
it upon the floor on entering, where it lay flat. His father scowled
a little when he noticed it; for he wanted his son to be a credit to
him as a hunter. But his scowl turned into a merry twinkle when he
saw how radiant his son’s face was despite his ill luck, and what a
small, delicately formed little fellow he was. Besides the old
warrior was in an unusually good humor. Had he not killed a fat
beaver that day? And was not beaver tail the choicest of all foods?

“In a few hours Weewah’s brothers and sisters, rolled in their warm
Hudson Bay blankets, were breathing heavily, and his father and
mother were far away in dreamland. Weewah was in dreamland, too; but
not the land that comes with sleep. He was in the happy state of
eager expectation that comes when to-morrow is to be a great day in
one’s life. And so he lay, snugly wrapped in his blanket, his black
eyes shining as he watched the embers of the fire in the center of
the tepee slowly grow dim and smoulder away. Meanwhile the very
thing he was dreaming about was happening out in the dark spruce
swamp.

“The great lynx, whose tracks Weewah had seen, started out just at
dusk on his nightly rabbit and grouse hunt. He had spent the day
curled up under the protecting boughs of a drooping spruce almost
within sound of Weewah’s hatchet where the snare was being set. Now
he took his way leisurely along his former trail, sniffing the air,
and examining every likely looking nook that might hide the material
for his supper. His great, fur-padded feet gave out no sound as he
glided along over the now frozen crust, and he was the embodiment of
stealth as he glided forward with ears erect, and stubby tail
straight out.

“Suddenly he stopped, raised his head and distended his nostrils,
drinking in the familiar odor wafted to him from some point near at
hand. Then he dropped low, his long fur dragging noiselessly on the
snow crust, as he wormed snake-like along toward a clump of
low-hanging spruces. His keen, yellow eyes had caught sight of the
crouching rabbit held in place at first by the twigs that Weewah had
placed there, but now stiff and rigid as iron.

“Closer and closer crept the lynx, until he was within six feet of
his victim. And still the rabbit did not move. The great body,
quivering with suppressed energy, now slowly lowered itself and the
hind legs were carefully drawn under for the spring. Then like a
flash the gray body shot forward and with a snarl the dagger-like
teeth closed upon the bunch of fur.

“At the same time the lynx felt a violent tug at his throat, and a
heavy club dealt him a sharp blow across the back as it fell from
overhead. In amazement the great brute dropped the rabbit, springing
violently backward as he did so. But the leather thong about his
neck and the club attached to it followed him in the spring, the
noose tightening about his neck.

“With a scream of rage he pulled violently to free himself, bracing
with his great fore feet against the club as he did so. But instead
of freeing himself he felt a quick tightening of the noose at his
throat. Frantic with rage and fright he continued to jerk and pull,
sometimes changing his attack to viciously biting the stick. But the
only effect produced was to gradually tighten the noose, which was
now tangled with the thick throat hair, and did not relax.

“Time and again he returned furiously to the attack, bracing his
feet against the stick, and pulling with all his strength.
Inevitably he would have choked himself to death, as Weewah had
planned he should, but for the fact that the little Indian had made
the loop a little too long, so that the pulling produced a violent
but not fatal choking. Many a lynx commits suicide in this way just
as the trapper plans it.

“For hours the lynx wrestled vainly to free itself, varying the
attacks on the club by trying to run away from it. But running away
from it was quite as much out of the question as tearing it loose.
For when the animal attempted to run the club was jerked about its
limbs, tripping it, and frequently becoming entangled in brush and
bushes. At last, exhausted, and thoroughly sulky, the great cat
laboriously climbed a tree, and extended itself along one of the
lower limbs, the club still dangling at one side from its neck. In
all its struggles it had not gone more than two hundred yards from
where the trap had been set.

“An hour before daylight the next morning, Weewah, who had been
waiting for the first indications of morning, stole silently out of
the tepee without awakening even the light-sleeping members of his
family. He carried with him his own tomahawk, and his bow and arrow;
but also he carried the heavy axe that his mother used for cutting
the wood for the fire. She would miss it, he knew, and also he knew
that he would be in for a solid whack from the first stick that lay
handy when he returned; but he was willing to brave all this. The
axe must be had at any cost.

“The sun was just pushing its blood red rim above the low hills in
the east when he reached the edge of the spruce swamp. And it was
still only an oval, fire red ball when the little Indian approached
the place where he had set the snare the day before. He had swung
along lightly and swiftly over the beginning of the trail, but now
as he approached the goal his heart beat hard against his chest,
just as any white boy’s would have done under the circumstances. But
long before he actually reached the spot where the trap had been
left he knew that he had been successful. Successful, at least, in
having lured the prey into his snare.

“He could tell this by the condition of the snow, which had been dug
up and thrown about by the wild struggle of the lynx. He loosened
his tomahawk, therefore, held his arrow in readiness on the string,
and approached the scene of turmoil.

“One glance at the trampled snow, the dead rabbit still lying where
the lynx had dropped it, and the broad twisting trail leading
further into the swamp, told him the story of what had taken place
more completely than any white man could write it. And almost
without pausing he began following this trail cautiously forward,
his arrow still poised; for one never knows what a captive animal
may do when driven to desperation.

“Suddenly the little Indian stopped, his eyes snapping as he drew
the arrow to the head with every ounce of strength in his arms and
back. There, crouching on an upper limb of a tree perhaps a foot in
diameter, was the huge lynx, watching him with curling lips,
crouching ready to spring.

“Weewah’s first impulse was to send the finishing shaft through the
great body on the limb. It would be a great triumph for Weewah--the
little Indian boy, too small yet to be a hunter--to drag into his
father’s tepee early that morning a great forest cat killed with his
own bow and arrow. But after all, would a really great hunter feel
much pride in killing a captive lynx from a safe distance with an
arrow?

“He knew very well that doing such a thing would not mark him as a
great hunter. And he was determined that he should be called a great
hunter before he was a day older.

“So he lowered his arrow, removed it from the string, and laid the
bow down beside the tree. He loosened his own tomahawk, also, and
laid that close at hand near the tree trunk. Then he seized the big
axe of his mother that he had brought with him and began chopping at
the trunk, making the chips fly rapidly under his skillful aim.

“At the first blow of the axe against the trunk the lynx had half
risen, giving a fierce growl of rage. For a moment it hesitated,
ready to spring on the boy. But that moment of hesitancy was
decisive. And as the strokes of the axe continued uninterruptedly
the great animal gradually settled down sulkily on the branch, cowed
by its fruitless battle with the cord and stick.

“Meanwhile Weewah was swinging his axe to good purpose. Nor was he
directing his blows in a haphazard manner. With practiced eye he had
selected a clear spot where he wished the tree to fall, and now by
cutting half way through the trunk on the side facing in that
direction, and then cutting on exactly the opposite side a little
higher up he knew that the tree would fall precisely as he wished.

“Presently the tree began to waver slightly. It was sufficient,
however, to make the great cat on the bough crouch and whine with
fright. A few more sharp blows of the axe made the top limbs tremble
ominously. A puff of wind now would have toppled it over; but there
was not a breath of air stirring. Another axe stroke or two and it
would bring it to the ground.

“But before delivering the finishing strokes Weewah paused long
enough to replace his snow-shoes which he had removed before he
began chopping. He also picked up his tomahawk and thrust it half
way into his belt, where he could seize it instantly. Then he took
the axe and gave three vigorous, carefully directed finishing blows.

“And still the lynx did not leap. When the creature felt the limb
quivering beneath it, it rose as if to jump; then, confused and
uncertain, it crouched low again, clinging tightly to the branch as
if for protection. Just before the limb reached the ground, however,
it sprang far out into the snow, making violent leaps with the club
whirling about it, and quickly becoming entangled.

“Weewah, with tomahawk raised, was close upon its heels. Another
stride and he would have buried the blade in the animal’s skull. But
at that moment the lynx wheeled suddenly, dodging the blow aimed at
its head, and sprang toward its pursuer. Its great claws as it
struck at him cat fashion, scratched Weewah’s cheek, and cut two
deep grooves in his shoulder. It was a blow that would have been
disastrous had not the entangled club jerked the animal to one side.

“With a yell the little Indian sprang toward the crouching, snarling
animal, thrusting out his right snow-shoe as he did so. Instantly
the frame and lacings of the shoe were crushed in the savage jaws of
the lynx. But at the same moment the tomahawk blade flashed through
the air and buried itself deep in the thick skull.

“Without a sound the great fur-covered body relaxed, quivered, and
then lay still with the teeth still buried in the snow-shoe frame
only an inch from Weewah’s foot.

“The little Indian stood for a few moments looking at his victim.
Then he reached down and tried to pry loose the fixed jaws. It was
no easy task. For the muscles had set in the last convulsive death
grip and it was only with the aid of his tomahawk blade that they
could finally be relaxed.

“Weewah now lashed the forepaws to the dead animal’s lower jaw to
prevent them from catching against things as he dragged the body
over the snow. Then he unfastened the strap from the club, and
taking the line over his shoulder started for home, scuffing along
as best he could on his broken snow-shoe, towing the big cat after
him.

“All that morning Weewah’s mother had scolded about the missing axe.
Weewah was missing too, but she felt no solicitude about that. With
the axe it was different: people who took away axes were not always
particular about returning them, whereas boys always came back. It
hadn’t occurred to her that the boy and the axe had gone away
together.

“She had grumblingly gathered wood for the fire without the aid of
her usual implement, and now was busily engaged in boiling roots and
meat in a great pot, while her husband smoked his pipe, paying no
attention to his spouse’s complaints. Some of the smaller children
were playing noisy games, running in and out of the tepee, shouting
and laughing like a pack of white school children.

“Presently one of Weewah’s younger sisters, squatted on a stump,
raised a shrill cry, ‘Weewah, Weewah is coming!’

“The playing stopped at once, the children gathering in front of the
tepee to gaze in mute astonishment at their older brother. Tired as
he was from dragging the load, and leg weary from stumbling along
with his broken snow-shoe, he now held his head erect and his chin
high. Without a word he strode into the open flap of the tepee,
dragging the dead lynx after him. In front of his father he stopped
and dropped his burden; then he drew the blood-stained tomahawk from
his belt and laid it beside the dead animal, and stood silently
before his parent with folded arms.

“For several minutes the warrior smoked his pipe in silence. Then he
gave a grunt of satisfaction, laid his pipe aside, and ran his hand
deliberately over the body of the dead animal. He found no arrow
holes. Next he turned the great head and examined the clean wound,
and then the blood-stained blade of the tomahawk, and the tightened
cord of buckskin about the neck.

“His examination told him the story of what had happened out there
in the woods. He knew that Weewah had first caught the lynx in his
snare, and then had killed it with a blow from his tomahawk instead
of shooting it with an arrow. And he was proud of his son. But no
one but an Indian would have known it.

“With another grunt of satisfaction, however, he drew his hunting
knife from the sheath in his belt. By a few deft strokes he severed
two toes from the forepaw of the lynx, with the long curved claws
protruding, leaving a strip of fur at the back. Then he quickly
fashioned a loop in the skin so that the claws hung as a pendant
from it. When this was finished to his satisfaction he stood up and
beckoned to the boy; and when Weewah stepped forward the old Indian
placed the fur string about his neck with the lynx claws suspended
in front.

“Then he placed his hands on the little fellow’s shoulders and
looked sharply into his eyes, the little Indian returning the gaze
with quiet dignity.

“‘Weewah, the mighty hunter,’ the old Indian said slowly.

“Then he seated himself and resumed his pipe as if nothing had
happened.”

Martin knocked the ashes out of his pipe and threw an extra chunk of
wood on the fire.

“Time we were turning in,” he said.

“But tell me,” Larry asked; “did Weewah’s mother give him the
beating for taking her axe?”

“What, beat a mighty hunter like Weewah?” Martin asked in feigned
surprise. “No indeed! No more beatings for him. From that day on no
woman, not even his mother, would ever give him a blow. And his
father would now take him with him on his hunting trips, even into
the most dangerous places, just as he would any other hunter. For he
had proved his title, you see.”

Then the old man took his pipe from his lips, and said to the boy
earnestly:

“You see I am the old Indian and you are Weewah in this case. Only
you haven’t had a chance to kill your lynx yet. But we are going
right into that country where the lynx lives, and sooner or later
you’ll have a chance to show your metal. When that time comes
remember the story of little Weewah.

“And now you must turn in for the night.”




                             CHAPTER VI

                         FINAL PREPARATIONS


Sometime in the middle of the night Larry was awakened by flakes of
snow driven into his face, and by the sound of the storm howling
around the tent. The flakes sputtered in the fire which still flared
and struggled to keep burning. The boy was warm and comfortable in
the fur bag, however, and after pulling the flap over his head to
keep out the snow, he was soon sleeping soundly. When he opened his
eyes again it was daylight, and Martin was plodding about in the
storm, building a fire close to the tent where the wind struck it
least. The snow was still falling and was even then a foot deep on
the level.

The old hunter was in high spirits: he had been hoping for the
storm, and the fact that it was a roaring blizzard made no
difference to him so long as the snow kept falling.

The inside of the tent was warm and the boy crawled out of the fur
bag reluctantly and reached for his shoes.

“Not that pair,” old Martin said; “there are your things over at the
foot of your bed. No more city clothes from now on. I nearly worked
my fingers off last night getting things ready for you.”

Larry wondered how much time the old hunter had found for sleep when
he examined the pile of clothing the hunter had laid out for him.
For most of the pieces had been altered in some way to make them so
that the boy could wear them, cut down from some of the larger
garments from the hunting outfit. Sleeves and trouser-legs had been
cut off or turned up, and buttons set over to take up the slack of
the bagging jacket in a way that showed how handy the old hunter was
with the needle. His most laborious task had been in reducing the
size of a pair of moose-skin moccasins, although he had simplified
this operation by taking in the back seam. At that they were at
least three sizes too large, as Larry pointed out.

“But when you have on two, or three, or four pairs of thick German
socks,” Martin assured him, “you won’t notice a little thing like
that. And you’ll fill out the rest of the clothes with underwear the
same way.”

Beside the pile of clothing Martin had placed some other things
which he told the boy were to be his personal belongings that were
to be carried with him all the time except when he slept. But the
hunter told him not to put them away until after they had had
breakfast, and made things a little more secure about the tent. So
Larry left the things as he found them, and went to help Martin.

He soon discovered the difference between his new clothes and the
“city” ones he had discarded. Even the fury of the blizzard could
not force the piercing cold through the thick, soft Mackinaw cloth;
and with the exception of the end of his nose, he was as warm as
toast as he worked under the hunter’s directions.

One side and the back of their tent was protected from the wind by
the wall of rock, and the fire checked the fury of the storm from
the front; but the snow drifted in on them from the unprotected
side, and they remedied this by stretching a piece of canvas across
the gap. It was no easy task, and several times the wind tore it
away before they could get it anchored securely, but when it was
finally made storm proof the enclosure before the roaring fire was
almost as warm and comfortable as a house.

“Now for your equipment,” Martin announced, when everything was
secured to his complete satisfaction.

Larry found that a light hunting hatchet and a stout hunting knife
had been added to his belt of cartridges, suspended in leather
sheaths from loops slipped over the belt. The belt itself was passed
through the loops in the jacket, so that the weight came upon his
shoulders instead of his waist, and when buckled, drew the coat
snugly around him. The gun in its sheath was slung over his shoulder
and hung at his left side. His fur mittens were fastened with
leather strings to the coat sleeves so that there was no possibility
of losing them even when slipped off.

There was a pocket compass in a hunting case about the size of a
watch which fitted into an upper pocket of his jacket which had a
button flap for holding it. As an additional precaution against
losing it a leather string reached from the inside of the pocket and
was fastened to the ring. And Larry found that his watch was secured
in his watch-pocket in a similar manner.

“We can’t take a chance on losing anything,” the hunter explained;
“for there are no jewelry stores along the road that we are going to
travel.”

Larry found that there were three water-proof match boxes to be
distributed in his trousers’ pockets, and a pocket knife that
combined several kinds of useful tools. The matches seemed to be the
ordinary parlor kind. But Martin surprised him by taking one,
dipping it in a cup of water, and then after wiping it off, lighting
it like an ordinary dry match. Even after a match had been floating
in the water for several minutes it would light and burn readily.

“They’ve all been dipped in shellac,” Martin explained. “The shellac
forms a water-proof coating that keeps out moisture but doesn’t
interfere with lighting or burning. So even if your match safe leaks
you won’t have to go without a fire.”

In one box which Larry thought contained matches he found six little
cubes looking like wax run into little square aluminum cups. Martin
explained their use by a simple demonstration. He placed one of them
on the ground where he had scraped away the snow, laid a handful of
sticks over it, struck a match and touched the wax-like substance.
It burst into a bright flame at once, and continued to burn fiercely
for several minutes, igniting the sticks about it and helping to
keep their struggling flames going until enough heat had been
generated to make a steady fire.

“That’s a new fangled thing called ‘solid alcohol,’ used to start a
tenderfoot’s fire when he is wet and cold and has no little dry
twigs at hand,” said Martin. “An old woodsmen like me ought to throw
the stuff away and scorn to use it; and forty years ago I would have
done so. But I am wiser now, I hope, and I don’t despise some of the
new things as I did then. And I remember two different occasions
when I came near losing my life in the snow because my hands were so
cold and numb, and the small wood was so scarce, that I came near
not getting my fire started at all. So now I am going to take along
a few packages of these cubes, and you must do the same. We’ll never
use it except as a last resort; but sometime it may come in handy
for starting a fire or boiling a cup of tea.

“You know we will only use two matches a day after we leave here--one
match to start our fire at noon and at night. There will be coals
from the night next morning to cook our breakfast by. It’s a mark of
bad woodsmanship to have to use more than one match to start a fire,
no matter what kind of weather is going.”

“But how about your pipe?” Larry asked. For the old man smoked
almost continually during his waking hours.

Old Martin sighed and shook his head. “No more pipe for me after we
leave here,” he said, with a little laugh. “The weight in pemmican
that I’ll take instead of the tobacco may be just the amount that
will decide the question of our getting through alive. Smoking isn’t
a necessity, but eating is.”

Larry looked at the old man to see if he were not joking; but he saw
that he was thoroughly in earnest. It made the boy realize the
serious nature of the task before them to know that the old man was
going to sacrifice the greatest solace of his life. But it roused
his determination, and his spirits were too buoyant to be long
depressed.

All day long Martin kept him busy helping at various things that
must be completed before their departure. The toboggans were hauled
into the canvas enclosure, where he and the old man packed and
unpacked the loads, adding something here, or leaving out something
there, working in the glow of the warm fire. Dog harnesses had to be
altered and extra ones tucked away on the sleds, snow-shoe lacings
examined and re-lashed, and a dozen things attended to that Larry
recognized as important when Martin pointed them out. The fire, too,
needed considerable tending to keep a huge kettle of beans cooking
which Martin declared must simmer all day if they were to be cooked
properly.

Toward night the wind subsided, and the clouds cleared away, so that
by the time they had finished their heaping plates of pork and beans
the stars were out glistening like steel points in the frosty air.
Later in the evening they heard howling in the distance--terrifying
sounds to the boy, made by a pack of big timber wolves out on a
hunt, as Martin explained. And for fear the dogs might start an
independent wolf hunt on their own account, Martin tied up the big
malamoots after he had fed them.

During the day Martin had brought several armfuls of packages into
the tent from the stores under the tarpaulin as he went back and
forth at his work. Now that supper was over and the dishes cleaned
he lighted his pipe and and seated himself beside the packages. He
was always talkative when working by the evening fire, and seemed to
find great pleasure in imparting bits of information to the boy from
his inexhaustible store of woodland experiences.

To-night as he began fumbling among the packages, he asked:

“Larry, have you decided what you are going to carry in your ditty
bag?”

“Ditty bag?” Larry repeated; “I’d know better what I was going to
carry in it if I knew what a ‘ditty bag’ was.”

“What, a veteran forest pilot like you not know what a ditty bag
is!” Martin asked in mock astonishment. “Then it’s high time for you
to learn. A ditty bag is the thing that does for the woodsman what
all the pockets in a suit of clothes do for a boy--it carries the
forty and one indispensable things that can’t be carried in some
other place. You’d better sit over here beside me and make yours up
to-night while I am fitting out mine.”

So the boy moved over to the little pile of packages ready for
instructions.

The hunter handed him a little bag made of tough water-proof
material with a string at the top for tying securely. Then he
rummaged through the packages, taking out what he wanted and placing
them in the bag. At his suggestion Larry duplicated this selection
of things for his own bag, so that in case one bag should be lost
they would still have the other. “But,” said Martin, “you must put
in some little thing for luck--anything that strikes your fancy,
after the other things are in. That’s a hunter’s superstition, like
the Indian’s ‘medicine.’”

The first useful article selected was a neat Red Cross package
containing a few useful medicines and surgical dressings for an
emergency. Next came needles of all sizes, with several skeins of
thread, and a wooden handle in which were several awls, neatly
stored in a hollow bobbin on which was wound many lengths of strong
waxed cord. A can of gunoil found a place, and a small whetstone,
rough on one side for sharpening the axes, and smooth on the other
for the knives. A tool case, containing a “good-sized carpenter
shop,” as Martin explained and made of aluminum after Mr. Ware’s own
design, found especial favor; and a broken shell extractor was
considered indispensable.

Buttons and skeins of twine of various sizes went into the bag as a
matter of course; but when the old hunter selected three packages,
each containing a dozen yards of the kind of twisted wire used for
hanging pictures of different sizes, the boy burst out laughing and
rolled on the blankets. He suspected Martin of trying to play off a
quiet hoax on him, and did not intend to be caught in the trap.

Nothing was farther from Martin’s thoughts, however, as Larry
discovered when the use of the wire was explained. It was to be used
for making the snares for catching small animals, particularly
rabbits, the hunter said, and for that purpose was unequaled. And
the old man assured him that for securing food on the march in a
snow-bound country snares were far more useful than rifles. Indian
families in many northern regions depended almost entirely upon
their snares for their supply of winter food.

“Rabbits are the bread and butter of the woodsman in the winter,”
Martin said. “The rabbits make little narrow paths in the
snow--thousands of them, running in all directions--and when they are
not disturbed and going about their business, they always follow
these paths. Now when the rabbit comes to a fallen limb lying across
his path a few inches above the ground, he likes to go under the
limb rather than hop over it. This simplifies matters for the
Indian. He simply hangs his snare in front of the hole under the
limb, and is almost sure to catch the first rabbit that comes
hopping along that particular path.

“The snare is just a simple slip-noose made large enough to let the
rabbit’s head pass through easily. If the wind is blowing the snare
can be held open and in place by tying it with blades of dead grass,
which are strong enough to hold it in place until the rabbit gets
his head through.

“The other end of the snare string is tied to a limb that is bent
down and fastened in a notch cut in a stick or a small sapling if it
happens to be in the right place. The notch is cut deep enough to
hold the bent limb, but not firmly enough but what it can be jerked
loose pretty easily.

“Now when the rabbit comes hopping along the path and starts to go
under the limb, he runs his head through the snare. When he feels
something around his neck he pulls back to get out of its way; but
that tightens the noose about his neck, and he begins leaping about
frantically to get loose. In this way he jerks the bent limb out of
the notch that holds it down, the limb flies back, and swings him up
into the air where he smothers in short order.

“Of course if the snare was simply fastened to the limb over the
path the rabbit would choke himself to death for a certainty,
because he never stops pulling and tugging at the noose while he has
a kick left in him. But then some fox or weasel would probably come
along and get him. But neither of them will get him if he is
dangling in the air: the weasel can’t reach him, and the fox is such
a crafty fellow, always looking out for traps and tricks, that he
won’t go near a dead rabbit hanging on a string, even if he is
starving.

“Now that the snow has stopped falling the rabbits will be out
to-night making paths, and to-morrow night we’ll put out some snares
just for practice. I’ll teach you a dozen ways to make snares for
different kinds of game, but the principle of all of them is the
same as the one for catching Mr. Rabbit. And he’s the boy we’re
interested in mostly.”

The old hunter rose and went out to “have a look at the snow,” as he
put it. He came back well pleased with his inspection.

“The crust will form and set hard to-night,” he said to Larry, “and
to-morrow you’ll begin your hardest and most important
lesson--learning to walk on snow-shoes. You can look forward to
taking some of the grandest headers you have ever taken in your
life,” he added, grinning.

“But--” Larry began, and then stopped.

“‘But’ what?” Martin asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Larry answered evasively. “I was just thinking of
those headers that I am going to take to-morrow, that’s all.”

“Well, go to bed and dream about them then,” the old hunter
instructed.




                            CHAPTER VII

                   THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE FOREST


“My goodness, boy,” the old hunter said the next morning at
breakfast, “I do wish you could handle a pair of snow-shoes. We’d
start for home to-morrow, if you could. For the crust is perfect,
and the weather is settled for a spell I think. But there’s no use
starting until we can make good time every hour, so we’ll spend
another week letting you learn to use the snow-shoes, and getting
the kinks out of your legs.”

Larry made no reply but munched his bacon and biscuit, occasionally
handing a bit to Kim who sat near, watching expectantly. As soon as
breakfast was finished, Martin brought our two pairs of snow-shoes
and strapped one pair to his own feet, instructing Larry to follow
his example. Then he showed the boy how to take the swinging,
gliding steps, sliding one shoe past the other with the peculiar leg
motion that shot the shoe ahead without getting tangled up with its
mate.

“Now watch me while I run out to that tree and back, and try to do
as I do when you start,” he instructed. And with that he struck out,
the two dogs running beside him, barking excitedly, for they seemed
to know the significance of snow-shoes, and were eager for a run
through the woods.

The tree Martin had indicated was about a hundred yards away, and
the old hunter covered the distance at top speed, exhilarated as a
boy trying his skates on the first ice of the winter. He did not
stop when the tree was reached, but turned sharply to one side so as
to circle it. As he did so Larry passed the tree on the other side,
running like a veteran, trying to beat him, and bursting with
suppressed laughter. “I’ll race you to the top of the hill and
back,” the boy shouted exultantly.

But the old man, in his astonishment, bumped into a sapling and came
to a full stop.

“Where in the world did you learn to use snow-shoes like that?” he
asked, when Larry had swung around to him.

“Oh, in the Adirondacks that winter,” Larry answered, trying to seem
as if knowing how to use snow-shoes was the most ordinary thing in
the world.

“But why didn’t you _say_ so?” Martin persisted, his face beaming.

“Well, you never asked me,” said Larry. “I came within one of
telling you last night, but I just thought I’d save it and surprise
you.”

“Well, you sure did surprise me,” the old hunter said; “the very
best surprise I have had since I can remember. Why, I woke up half a
dozen times last night worrying because we would have to wait so
long because you had to learn to use the shoes before we could
start. And here you knew how all the time. You can run like an
Indian, Larry.”

“Well, I can run pretty good,” Larry admitted modestly. “I beat all
the boys in the Christmas races up there last year, and one of them
was an Indian boy, at that.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Martin exclaimed with admiration. “Why, I was
going at a pretty good clip myself just now, and yet you were at my
heels. Face about and back to the tent we go, for now we have a new
day’s work before us, and to-morrow we head for home.”

Saying this Martin turned and ran for the camp, Larry doing his best
to keep up; but he finished twenty feet behind. It is one thing to
beat a crowd of boys on snow-shoes, but quite another to have a
competitor who could show his heels to every man in the whole North
Country.

And now everything was arranged exactly as if they were making their
start in earnest. The sledges were loaded with infinite care, and
the dogs harnessed in their places, one dog to each toboggan. Larry
was to have Kim under his charge, and to pull in harness with the
dog; for Kim was not only the stronger dog of the two, but also the
one most easily managed.

Martin had made harnesses for himself and Larry, with broad draw
straps over the shoulders and across the chest, so that the weight
of the body was thrown into the harness as they bent forward in
walking. The old hunter harnessed himself in front of his dog, so as
to choose the course, set the pace, and break the trail all at the
same time. But he instructed Larry to harness himself next his
toboggan and behind Kim.

By this arrangement the old man worked out a shrewdly conceived
plan. He knew that Kim would always strive to keep up with the sled
just ahead of him, for that is the nature of the malamoot when
sledging. This would force the boy to keep up the pace, no matter
how tired and leg weary he might be. At the same time it gave Larry
the benefit of a thoroughly broken-out trail every step of the way--a
thing the boy learned to appreciate within an hour.

Before starting Martin built up a rousing fire to keep the camp
kettle boiling, and then with a shout struck out into the forest. At
first he went almost in a straight course, and at a pace that made
Larry open his eyes in amazement. Was _this_ the speed they would
have to keep up hour after hour? Then the old man made wide circles,
bending first one way and then the other, until they had been going
about an hour and a half. Now he stopped and asked the panting,
perspiring Larry, how he would take a short-cut to camp.

“Good gracious, I don’t know!” said the boy.

“Well, I didn’t expect you would,” Martin said quietly; “but I’m
going to let you steer us back to it all the same. Take your compass
and lead us straight northeast and you’ll land us there. It will be
good practice for you. And mind you, keep up the pace.”

Larry now changed places with Kim, taking the lead as Martin had
done, got out his compass, and they were off again. The country was
fairly open, so that while he was guided by the little instrument,
he really steered by landmarks, as Martin had instructed him.
Usually the landmark was some tree some distance away that stood
exactly in line with the northeast mark indicated by the compass.
This tree would then be the boy’s goal until he reached it, when
some other mark further on would be selected. In this way the
instrument was only brought into use every half mile or so, a much
easier method than constantly watching the dial.

The old hunter offered no suggestions about the route, he and Jack
simply plodding along in the procession. But Larry, upon whom the
brunt of everything had now fallen, had hard work to keep his
flagging legs moving along at a rate that would satisfy the members
of his rear guard. He was surprised that they did not come across
some marks of the trail they had made on the way out even after they
had been plodding for a full three-quarters of an hour. This made
him apprehensive that Martin was letting him take them out of their
course, for some reason of his own. He was astonished, therefore,
suddenly to come in sight of their camp dead ahead, and not over a
quarter of a mile away. The compass had given him a short-cut from
Martin’s purposely bending course.

As soon as the dogs sighted the camp they began barking wildly and
tugging at the traces in their eagerness to reach it; and Larry,
whose legs were flagging sadly, felt all weariness disappear in the
excitement of finishing the run. So, shouting and laughing, with
both dogs leaping and barking, the two teams raced into camp neck
and neck.

They rested a few minutes, and then began making final preparations
for an early start the next day. They visited the yacht and found
that she was packed thick in a huge bank of ice that had formed upon
her, and been banked about her by the waves, so that she was
practically frozen in for the winter. Then they strengthened all the
fastenings of the canvas under which the provisions and supplies
were stored, and Martin cut several strips of canvas and tied them
with short pieces of rope to trees a few feet away and all about the
heap, where they would blow about in the wind and frighten any
inquisitive prowlers, particularly foxes.

“But what is the use of going to all that trouble, Martin?” Larry
asked. “We will never come back to this place, and probably no one
else will come here, so all this work is for nothing it seems to
me.”

The old hunter smiled and shook his head. “That’s the way I should
have talked at your age,” he said. “But I have learned that many
things in this world turn out very differently from what we expect,
and so I always plan for the very worst that can possibly happen.
And it will be a comfort for me to know that there is a big cache of
supplies waiting here in case we have to come back, although I
haven’t the faintest idea of doing so.”

When the canvasses had been secured to Martin’s satisfaction he made
the fastenings all about their camp secure in the same way. For he
had decided not to take their present tent with them, but in its
place a smaller one, made with a stout canvas bottom sewed fast to
the rest of the tent, so that the whole thing resembled a huge bag.
There were several advantages in this arrangement. It provided a
dry, clean floor, kept the wind from creeping in, and obviated the
likelihood of losing small articles at the camp site that might
otherwise be overlooked and left behind on breaking camp. Moreover,
it insured the tent not being blown from over their heads in a gale
should the fastenings give way--a very important thing when passing
through a barren, windswept country.

Then they made a final inspection of the toboggan loads, unpacking
them and re-packing them carefully, Martin enjoining the boy to
memorize every article and where it could be found on each sledge.
This would save them much useless hunting, and overhauling, and
disarranging of the loads. And so when night came they were all
ready for the early start the next morning.

At daylight they were off on their race for life--just how grim and
serious an undertaking Larry was to learn before the day was over.
For now it was plod, plod, plod, Martin setting the pace and
breaking the trail, keeping up an even swing forward regardless of
obstacles. Long before midday Larry realized the magnitude of their
undertaking; for Martin allowed no pause, no resting to catch up
lost breath. It was on, and on, every step ahead being counted
precious gain through the unknown stretch of wilderness.

At noon they stopped, the dogs dropping in their tracks, and Larry
stretched his aching legs on his load while Martin boiled a pot of
tea and heated up their lunch. But in half an hour they were back in
the harness again, trudging on silently. Even the dogs seemed to
realize that they must do their utmost, straining at the traces all
the time, with noses pointed straight ahead, but wasting no energy
in useless looking about at interesting objects along the trail as
they had always done on their previous journeys.

By the middle of the afternoon even the dogs showed signs of
fatigue, as the loads were heavy, and despite every effort he could
make, Martin’s speed was gradually slackening. By this time Kim was
obliged to haul his load practically without aid from Larry, whose
legs were tottering. Yet the boy pushed his feet ahead mechanically,
watching the slowly descending sun, and hoping the old hunter would
soon decide to stop for the night. But it was not until just before
sunset that the old man halted and selected a place for their camp.

His first provision for the night was to help Larry set up the tent;
then he took his snares and went off into the woods to set them,
instructing Larry to get in a good supply of wood and a big heap of
boughs for their bed. “We can cook and eat after dark, you know,” he
said, “but these other things have to be done in daylight.”

Fortunately for the boy boughs and wood were close at hand, for he
was fagged and exhausted beyond expression. He knew what Martin had
said to him about “getting accustomed to it in a few days” was
probably true, and this helped him keep up his courage; but there is
a limit to muscular endurance even when backed by the highest
quality of will-power. He managed to collect the wood and the
boughs, however, by the time Martin returned, and the old man found
him lying on the heap of boughs, sleeping the sleep of complete
exhaustion.

The six days following were practically repetitions of the first--a
ceaseless grind of hard work through the timber. Martin, although a
tough and seasoned veteran, began to show the effects of the strain,
while Larry had become an automaton, who performed the three
functions of working, eating, and sleeping mechanically. There were
no talks beside the camp-fire now before turning in, neither man nor
boy having enough surplus energy left at the end of the day to
indulge in more conversation than was absolutely necessary. Both had
settled down to their grim work, more and more of which Martin had
taken upon himself as they proceeded; and every day the boy had
reason to be thankful to the tough old woodsman for little acts of
kindness and thoughtfulness. But his efforts left the old man too
tired for useless conversation even if Larry had cared to listen.

At noon on the seventh day the woods thinned out into scraggly
trees, and an hour later the travelers emerged upon a flat, and
apparently treeless plain. Here Martin called a halt and left Larry
and the dogs while he took observations. In a few minutes he
returned, but instead of fastening on his harness he sat down beside
Larry on the sled.

“It isn’t as bad as it might be,” he said, “but it is bad enough, at
that. I can make out the outline of the fringe of trees on the other
side from the top of a big rock over yonder, and I think it is only
ten miles over to them. But I’m not sure, for distances are
deceptive in this country. So we’ll camp here now and get an early
start in the morning.”

Then he added, with a grim smile, “I guess you won’t mind the six
hours’ extra rest.”

They made their camp accordingly in a clump of trees, and Larry and
the dogs slept and rested, while the old hunter arranged for the
next day’s run. This consisted in rearranging the loads, examining
and mending harnesses and sled lashings, besides performing Larry’s
usual task of gathering wood and boughs, not rousing the tired boy
until a hot supper was ready. And when Larry had gorged himself,
Martin sent him back to his sleeping bag to get more rest without
waiting to help about cleaning up the supper pans and pots.




                            CHAPTER VIII

                            THE BLIZZARD


Even after the dogs were harnessed and ready to start the following
morning Martin hesitated.

“There’s a storm brewing,” he said. “The moon and the stars showed
it last night, and I can feel it in the air this morning. But we may
be able to get across before it strikes us, and I suppose we’ve got
to chance it.”

To Larry the old hunter’s apprehensions seemed absurd. The sun was
glaring brightly over the tree tops, and across the glistening crust
of the open plain the trees on the other side could be seen as a low
gray line, apparently close at hand. Surely those trees would be
reached before any storm settled over this clear day.

The hauling was much easier, too, on the smooth, level crust, so
different from the rough woodlands. Indeed, Larry’s toboggan seemed
to move so lightly that the boy stopped and examined his load after
he had been traveling a few minutes. He found, to his surprise, that
fully half his load had been transferred to Martin’s toboggan. The
discovery made his heart go out anew to the old man now rushing
ahead in feverish haste over the crust, and he put every ounce of
strength into keeping up the pace.

At the end of two hours the gray line ahead had become broad and
well-defined, while the line of trees behind them had dwindled to a
low gray streak on the horizon. But meanwhile the sun had turned to
a dull red ball and the wind had shifted into their faces. It took
no practiced eye now to see that a storm was approaching. But no one
unfamiliar with an arctic blizzard could conceive the fury of such a
storm as the one that broke half an hour later.

Squarely in their faces the wind struck them with such force that
even the dogs turned instinctively to avoid it, and to shield
themselves from the cutting, sand-like snow that was driven before
it. The temperature, too, dropped with inconceivable rapidity, and
the cold penetrated Larry’s thick clothing so that his skin tingled
despite the fact that he was exerting himself to the utmost, and a
moment before had been hot from his efforts. He closed his eyes for
a moment to shield them, and instantly the lashes were frozen
together. Unable to proceed he turned his back to the blast to rub
them open, and when he succeeded in doing so he found that Martin’s
sledge was completely blotted out by the storm, so that he was not
sure even of its location.

In a panic he realized the seriousness of his situation and rushed
forward in a frenzied effort to overtake his leader, shouting as he
struggled with the load. But his voice scarcely carried to the
struggling Kim, being drowned in the howl of the storm. He still had
enough command of his senses to remember that the wind was blowing
from dead ahead. But now, for some reason he did not understand, Kim
refused to face the blast squarely, but persisted obstinately in
turning almost at right angles to the left. In vain Larry shouted,
and kicked at the dog in desperation with his snow-shoe, but the
wind caught the clumsy framework, tripping the boy face downward
into the icy snow which cut and bruised his face.

Choking and gasping for breath he struggled to his feet again now
forcing his way forward blindly in the vague hope of stumbling upon
the elusive Martin. He was numb with the cold and exhausted by his
violent efforts; and while he strove to face the blast, he found
himself turning instinctively from it, while Kim, with seeming
perversity strained at the traces, first in one direction and then
another.

For a few minutes this struggle continued, and then a feeling of
irresistible drowsiness came over the boy. Standing with his back to
the wind he no longer felt the keen bite of the cold; and as he was
able to accomplish nothing by trying to go forward, he crouched down
behind the toboggan, mindful of Martin’s oft-repeated instructions
to keep moving to avoid freezing, but too much overcome to heed it.

Meanwhile the old hunter was in a far more distressed state of mind.
When the storm struck he had turned and shouted to Larry to keep
close to the tail of his toboggan, meanwhile fumbling to get his
compass from his pocket, for he knew that only the needle could hold
him to his course. It was just at this time that Larry’s lashes had
frozen together, and he had stopped to rub them open, so that he did
not overtake Martin’s sledge as the old man expected. And when the
old hunter looked up from fumbling with the compass a moment later,
the storm had blotted out the boy completely.

Instantly the old man brought his dog about to return to the other
sled, which was at most thirty yards away; but the heavy load,
clogged by the snow, moved slowly, and by the time he reached what
he felt sure must be the spot where Larry had stood the boy had
vanished. He was indeed only a few feet away, struggling desperately
with Kim who instinctively was striving to reach the other toboggan;
but in that storm an object thirty feet away was as completely
blotted out as if the interval had been miles instead of feet.

Martin knew that in a very short time the boy, struggling aimlessly
in the storm, would be overcome and frozen, and he realized that his
chance of finding him was desperate, as he could neither hear nor
see anything two yards ahead. His only hope lay in the sagacity of
the dog. So without a moment’s hesitation at the terrible risk he
was taking he cut the traces freeing the dog from his sled, and,
leaving the load of precious supplies standing where it was, sent
the animal ahead, holding the leash to restrain it. Guided by the
compass he began walking in narrowing circles, trusting to the dog
to find its mate should they pass near it. If he succeeded he could
weather the storm by the aid of the supplies on the boy’s toboggan.
If he failed?--well, the storm would shorten the end mercifully; and
the boy would have gone on before him.

For half an hour he fought his circular course through the storm,
Jack plodding ahead, crouched down to resist the blast. Then the
animal suddenly straightened up on its legs, and plunged off to one
side barking excitedly, and jerking Martin after him. A few short
leaps brought them to where Larry lay curled down behind the
toboggan.

Kim, who had been curled up beside the boy, sprang up to meet his
mate, jerking Larry about in his excitement, as they were still
fastened together in harness. But even this violent shaking only
roused the boy for a moment, who dropped back into a doze
immediately.

The situation confronting Martin was desperate. Larry was rapidly
freezing, and as the nearest shelter of the woods was several miles
away, it was useless to attempt to reach it. The only alternative
was to try to make such shelter as he could with the supplies on
Larry’s sled. Fortunately in distributing the packs the day before
he had put the tent on Larry’s toboggan, and now he conceived a plan
for using it, although it would be sheer madness to attempt to pitch
it in a gale that almost blew the dogs off their feet at times.

First of all he pulled out Larry’s fur sleeping bag and, crouching
behind the load, managed to get the stupified boy into it, twisting
the top of the bag over his head so that the boy’s own breath would
help warm him. Then he took out the tent, standing with his back to
the blast and with the toboggan load in front of him, he gradually
worked it over one end of the load and under the sled.

It will be remembered that this tent was made with the floor cloth
sewn firmly to the side walls so that it was in effect a great bag.
Martin worked the opening of this bag around the sled, fighting
fiercely against the gale, and then forced the sled into the bottom,
turning it at right angles to the wind. In this way he formed a
barrier on the inside of the low tent. Then he pushed Larry in his
sleeping bag inside, and he and the dogs crawled in and huddled
together. Next he gathered together the loose edges of the opening
of the tent and tied them with the guy ropes, thus shutting out the
storm on every side and amply protected on the side where the wind
was fiercest by the loaded sled.

The old hunter, accustomed to severe cold, and heated by his
exertions, was warm and comfortable for the moment, at least, in
this nest; and the dogs found their lodgings so agreeable that they
licked the snow from between their toes, and soon curled up for a
nap. But Larry still remained motionless, and when Martin felt
inside the bag he found his face cold. Evidently the little warmth
left in the boy’s body was not sufficient to warm him back to life,
even in the sleepng bag.

Closing the bag again to retain what warmth there was inside, Martin
ripped open the lacings of the sled, and fumbling about found
Larry’s tin cup, a tin plate, and the little box containing the
cubes of “solid alcohol.” Placing one of these on the bottom of an
overturned tin plate the old hunter struck a match and lighted it,
keeping the dish between his outspread knees to prevent the dogs
knocking against it, and using his rifle as a tent pole to raise the
canvas as high as possible. It was a hazardous thing to do, as they
were all crowded into a space so small there was scarcely room for
all of them to curl up together, to say nothing of space for
starting a fire. But Larry’s case was desperate: Martin must find
some way of warming him. And even a very tiny flame in that closely
packed space would soon do this.

As the little blue flame grew larger and flickered upwards, the dogs
instinctively drew away from it, crowding close to the tent walls,
in this way leaving Martin a little more elbow room. It also gave
him an opportunity carefully to work loose part of the fastening so
as to make an opening a few inches long on the leeward side of the
tent for ventilation. For as the tent cloth was practically air
tight the flame and the breath from four pairs of lungs quickly made
the atmosphere stifling. But Martin did not wait for this warmth
alone to start up the boy’s flagging circulation. He scooped a tin
cup full of snow, reaching through the ventilating slit, and holding
this over the flame, melted and warmed it.

Each little cube was supposed to burn for ten minutes, and give out
an amount of heat entirely disproportionate to its size. But the
first cube had burned itself out and a second one was half consumed
before Martin secured half a cup of steaming hot water. Meanwhile
Larry had not roused, although his face was warmer and he was
breathing more naturally. A few sips of the hot water forced between
his lips, however, roused him quickly; and by the time he had
swallowed the contents of the cup the color had come back to his
cheeks.

The hot water warmed his tingling body like magic, and by the time
the third cube was burned out his cheeks were pink and even the tips
of his fingers warm. But Martin was not satisfied with this. He dug
out some lumps of pemmican, heated them in the flame, and fed him
the bits as they became warm, occasionally taking a mouthful
himself, and giving some to the dogs as a reward for good behavior.
By the time the last cube had burned itself out they had all made a
hearty meal, and Larry was feeling like himself again, warm and
comfortable in the fur bag.

But now Martin found himself in a dilemma. His own sleeping bag was
somewhere on his sled lost in the blizzard; and while his clothing
was warm, he soon realized that it would not be enough protection to
keep him from freezing in a few hours, now that the cubes were all
gone. There was only one thing to be done: he must wedge himself in
beside the boy and share his warm bag until the storm subsided.
Luckily for him the bag was a full-sized one like his own. So that
by dint of much wriggling and squeezing he managed to crawl in
beside the boy and pull the folds over his head, although it was
such a tight fit that neither of them could move when it was finally
accomplished.

They were warm, however, and other discomforts were a minor
consideration. And in a few moments all hands were sleeping soundly
while the storm raged about their little tent. All the rest of that
day and well into the night it roared incessantly. Then gradually it
began to abate in fury, and finally “blew itself out” as Martin
said. By sunrise there was scarcely a breath of air stirring, but
everything creaked and sparkled in the cold.

Getting out of the bag proved to be almost as hard a task as getting
into it, but the old hunter finally worked his arms free and then
crawled out, pulling the boy after him. Both were stiff and lame
from lying in the cramped position, but they were soon limbered up
by dancing about to keep warm while they gnawed at the frozen
pemmican and packed the sled.

Fortunately the fury of the wind had swept the plain clear of new
snow as fast as it had fallen on the glassy crust, so that the few
elevations on its surface were easily seen. One of these a quarter
of a mile away proved to be Martin’s sled, clear of snow on the
windward side, with a long pointed bank slanting off to leeward. So
that in half an hour’s time they had recovered it, harnessed the
dogs, and were making their way as quickly as possible to the edge
of the woods for which they were aiming the day before.

The distance proved to be short--only a scant three miles. But Larry
was still weak, and was tottering and almost exhausted when they
finally wallowed through the snowbanks at the edge of the great
spruce forest. He had said nothing to Martin of his weakness, but
the old man had been watching him out of the corner of his eye and
was well aware of his condition.

As soon as they reached an open space among the trees, therefore,
Martin stopped and made a roaring fire, while Larry sat on his sled
and rested, watching the old man brewing tea and cooking a hot meal.
His legs ached and his head swam a little, although he was beginning
to feel more like his old self by the time their breakfast was over.
But the thought of the weary hours of toil through the woods was
almost intolerable; and he was ready to cry for joy when Martin
announced that he “was going to look around for a camp,” leaving the
boy to toast his shins by the fire. “And I may find something to
shoot while I’m looking,” the old hunter added as he started on his
search.

In half an hour Martin returned fairly beaming at his success. He
had found no game, but he had stumbled upon a camping place which he
announced was “the best in all Canada.” “And these woods are full of
game, too,” he added.

The camping place which Martin had discovered was indeed an ideal,
as well as a very unusual one. It was a natural excavation under the
south side of an overhanging ledge of rock which was so protected
from the wind that only a thin layer of snow covered its rock floor.
A roaring fire built at the entrance warmed the hollowed out space
like a great room, and Larry found that the old hunter had started
such a fire and left it to warm things up while he returned for the
toboggans. It seemed a sylvan paradise to the exhausted boy.

The hunter watched the boy slyly as they stood in the warm glow by
the fire. “Perhaps you’d rather go on than to stop here over
to-morrow,” he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.

For answer the boy threw off his heavy coat, went over to his
toboggan, and began unfastening Kim and unpacking his load. And
Martin with a little laugh followed his example.

“You’ll stay and keep house to-morrow,” he explained as he worked,
“while I go out and have a try at some of this fresh meat that is
running loose around here. We need a supply to take the place of
what we’ve eaten in the last week, and I never saw a likelier place
for getting it, judging by the signs.”

All the afternoon the tireless old man worked laying in a supply of
fuel and making things snug, not allowing the boy to help, but
making him “tend camp” lying on a pile of warm furs beside the fire.




                             CHAPTER IX

                         THE TIMBER WOLVES


Early the next morning Martin roused Larry for breakfast. The old
man had been up an hour and was ready to start on his hunt as soon
as breakfast was finished, but he had let the boy sleep as long as
possible. While they ate Martin gave Larry final instructions as to
what he was to do during the day.

“Rest all you can,” he instructed, “and don’t go far from camp under
any circumstances. Don’t let the dogs loose even for a minute. It
isn’t likely that they would wander off, but they might get started
after a rabbit and wind up chasing caribou or fighting wolves.
Anyhow don’t give them a chance.”

At the mention of wolves the boy looked anxious. “What if the wolves
came near here--came right up to the camp and wanted to fight Jack
and Kim?” he asked.

The old man pointed to the little rifle standing against the wall.
“Give ’em the thirty-eight,” he said. “But they won’t come very
near,” he added. “They’ll be howling around in the distance of
course, because they will scent our cooking. But at worst they
wouldn’t dare come near until night; and I’ll be here by that time.
And always remember this: a wolf is a coward; and your thirty-eight
will knock dead in his tracks the biggest wolf that ever lived. Just
keep the little gun strapped on you all day and you won’t be afraid
or feel lonesome. Next to a man a gun is the most comforting
companion in the world.”

Larry followed Martin’s instructions almost to the letter. He
strapped on the gun and loafed about the camp-fire all the long
forenoon, varying the monotony by patting and talking to the dogs,
who lolled luxuriously beside the fire where Martin had tied them
with double leashes. By noon the period of idleness palled on the
boy who had entirely recovered from the exhaustion of the day
before. So he took his axe and spent a couple of hours gathering
fuel although Martin’s huge pile was still more than sufficient for
another day.

At intervals he heard wolves howling at a distance, but that had now
become a familiar sound, and he paid little attention to it. When
the sun was only an hour high he began getting supper ready, keeping
a sharp lookout for Martin who might appear at any minute. He had
planned an unusually elaborate meal to surprise and cheer the old
man when he returned, and he was so occupied with the work that he
was oblivious to everything else, until the dogs startled him by
springing up, bristling and snarling fiercely. Thinking that they
had scented or sighted the returning hunter Larry ran out to look
for him, shouting a welcome. But there was no sign of the old man.

In dismay he noticed that the sun was just setting, and on looking
through the trees in the direction indicated by the dogs’ attitude
he saw the silhouettes of four huge, gaunt wolves skulking among the
trees. The odor of his elaborate cooking had reached them, and as
night was coming on they were emboldened to approach.

The sight of the great creatures snarling and snapping in the gloomy
shadows made the “goose flesh” rise on the boy’s skin. And while the
presence of the dogs was a comfort, their attitude was not
reassuring. They pulled and strained at their leashes, bristling and
growling, but sometimes whining as if realizing that in a pitched
battle they would be no match for the four invaders.

The realization that he was utterly alone in the great wilderness
with darkness at hand, and a pack of wolves howling at his open door
made the boy chill with terror. Instinctively he sought shelter
behind the fire near the dogs, who welcomed him with appreciative
whines. They looked upon him as a protector, and their faith helped
his courage. Martin’s instruction to “give ’em the thirty-eight”
also cheered him, and he took out the little gun and prepared for
battle.

“Every wolf is a coward,” the old hunter had said; but these wolves
were not acting like cowards at all. They did not rush forward
boldly, it was true, but they were stealthily drawing nearer,
snarling and bristling. They would stand pawing and sniffing the
snow for a few moments as if the object of their visit was entirely
forgotten. Then one of them would suddenly spring forward two or
three short steps, and the whole crew would stand snapping their
jaws and glaring savagely at the camp. In this way they were
deliberately closing in upon it.

This method of approaching by short rushes was most disconcerting
and terrifying, and several times Larry decided to open fire without
waiting for the wolves to emerge from the shelter of the trees. But
each time his better judgment restrained him.

When they had approached to within the circle of the nearest trees,
however, he decided to act. Holding some cartridges in his left hand
for quick loading, as Martin had taught him, he knelt beside the
fire, rested his elbow on his knee, and tried to take careful aim.
But his hand trembled, and his heart pounded so hard, that the
sights of his rifle bobbed all about the mark he had selected. The
more he tried to steady the rifle the more it seemed to waver and
dance about, so that he knew it would be useless to fire.

At that moment the story of Weewah, the Indian boy, flashed into his
mind--the little savage who fought with a hatchet, while he, the
white boy, had his hard-hitting rifle and plenty of cartridges. He
lowered the gun for a moment, and steadied himself with a few deep
breaths, shutting his eyes and summoning all his courage. When he
opened them he found that his hand was steadier and the pounding in
his breast had almost ceased.

Meanwhile the wolves had spread out forming a restless semicircle
before the camp. There were three gray ones, and one huge fellow
almost pure white. Larry selected this white one for his first
victim. Resting his elbow again on his knee he took careful aim,
waiting for the restless wolf to pause for an instant. The moment
the huge animal stopped to snarl fiercely at the camp, Larry pressed
the trigger and fired.

At the sound of the report three of the wolves gave a startled leap
sidewise, and then crouched forward again as they recovered from
their surprise. But the white wolf sank in the snow where it stood,
and lay still: the little bullet had “knocked him dead in his
tracks” sure enough. With a gulp of exultation Larry slipped in a
fresh cartridge and aimed carefully at a wolf that was a little in
advance of the other two. Again his aim was true; but this wolf did
not drop silently as had the white one. Instead he gave a howl of
pain and rolled in the snow, turning it red all about him in his
death struggles.

The other two wolves had leaped back at the flash and sound of the
rifle as before. But at the sight and smell of their companion’s
blood they rushed upon him, tearing and gashing him in their lust,
and sucking his blood ravenously. Jack and Kim, made frantic by the
struggle, added their furious but impotent howls to the uproar in
their frenzied efforts to free themselves. While Larry, forgetful of
personal danger in the excitement, sprang up and approached the
struggling group, meanwhile inserting a fresh cartridge, and
despatched the third wolf as he crouched wallowing in his
companion’s blood.

The remaining wolf had paid no attention to the report that struck
down his mate; but now as the boy paused to take careful aim, the
huge creature, maddened by the taste of blood, turned suddenly and
rushed upon him. There was no time to retreat, even if Larry had
wished to do so. But he had no such intention, for the hot blood of
fighting ancestors was now surging through his veins. With the
coolness of a veteran the boy aimed and fired just as the gray
monster shot through the air in his final spring toward him. The
next instant his coat sleeve was ripped open clean to the shoulder
by the furious snap of the animal’s jaws, and he was knocked
headlong by the impact of the creature’s body.

Fortunately for him his bullet had found its mark, breaking the
wolf’s back just as the animal leaped from the ground, and thus
diverting the aim of its deadly jaws, while the force of its spring
knocked Larry out of the wounded creature’s reach. Its hind legs
were paralyzed and useless, but its jaws snapped viciously as it
struggled to reach its foe on its fore legs.

The boy was up in an instant, maddened by his fall, and full of
fight. Without trying to recover his gun which had fallen several
feet away, he rushed to the pile of fire-wood, seized a heavy club,
and brought it down again and again on the head of the crippled
beast, until he had pounded out the last spark of life. Then, when
it was all over, he stood trembling and weak, overcome by his
efforts and the excitement.

A moment later he ran to the dogs and, regardless of Martin’s
orders, turned them loose. He wanted them to share his victory, and
stood laughing and gulping hysterically as he watched them rush upon
the lifeless victims, and tear and maul them with wolfish ferocity.
It was no fault of theirs that they had not shared the fight, and
they vented their animosity by rushing from one victim to another,
jerking the limp carcasses about, and shaking them like rats.

Meanwhile it had grown dark; and still no sign of Martin. For a
little time after the battle Larry had stood forgetful of the old
man’s absence, reveling in the thought of the story he should have
to tell. But presently he realized the seriousness of his position.
He no longer feared for his own safety: he and his little gun could
“tend camp” against all comers he felt sure. But what was keeping
Martin away so long?

He consoled himself with the thought that probably the old man had
followed some game trail farther than he intended and was unable to
get back before nightfall. So when the dogs had tired themselves out
worrying the dead wolves, Larry tied them up and ate his cheerless
supper. This revived his spirits a little, and he put into effect a
plan he had made for surprising Martin. For this purpose he dragged
the carcasses of the wolves together and covered them with boughs so
that the old man would not notice them when he returned. At the
right time the boy would tell his story and revel in Martin’s
astonishment.

Then he built up a roaring fire, crawled into his sleeping bag and
tried to sleep. But after two hours of restless tossing about, his
mind filled with gloomy forebodings, he got up and seated himself
beside the fire for his long vigil.

It was a terrible night for the boy. The thought that Martin might
have been injured, or even killed, kept obtruding itself, and he
shuddered at the awful consequences of such a calamity. He reassured
himself over and over by the more probable explanation that the old
man had gone farther from camp than he intended. But the other
possibility could not be banished from his thoughts. And so he sat
before his roaring fire, a big dog snuggling against him on either
side, comforting his loneliness.




                             CHAPTER X

                         THE WOUNDED MOOSE


In this way he passed the long, terrible hours of the night. But as
soon as it began to grow light he untied the dogs, and took a circle
of several miles through the woods, hoping that he might find some
trace of the missing hunter. But he remembered the old man’s
instruction that he was not to leave the camp to go any very great
distance, and after two hours of futile search he returned in
despair.

The dogs, seeming to realize that something was wrong, were alert to
every unusual sound; and when Larry would spring up and peer through
the trees expectantly, they would leap about and bark excitedly. But
the sun rose higher and higher, and still Martin did not come.

At last the boy could stand the suspense no longer. In defiance of
Martin’s explicit instructions he decided to leave the camp and try
to find him. The thought that the old man must have been injured, or
taken ill, kept forcing itself into the boy’s mind. An experienced
hunter like Martin would not lose his way; and moreover, if he
should become confused, he would still have his own trail to follow
back to camp; for this trail was well marked in the snow. In any
event, Larry could not remain inactive any longer with these
terrible fears tearing at his heart.

So he harnessed the dogs tandem to one of the empty toboggans,
strapped on his snow-shoes, and started out following Martin’s trail
of the day before. At first he took the lead, running at top speed;
but presently he found that, since the trail had been broken out by
Martin, he could make better time by letting the dogs haul him on
the toboggan. His weight was so much less than the load they were
accustomed to haul that now they ran along the trail at high speed,
following Martin’s tracks without any guiding instructions.

For two hours they went forward, Kim leading, his nose close to the
snow, and both dogs keenly alert. The tracks wound in and out among
the thickets, indicating where Martin had explored likely looking
places for game, but their general direction was toward the
southwest, the course the old hunter had said he should take. Once
the snow-shoe trail had followed the track of a deer for half a
mile; but evidently the animal was not overtaken, for presently they
found where Martin turned off into his original course again.

By noon the dogs had begun to slacken their pace a little, and
Larry, thoroughly discouraged, had decided that he would retrace his
course, when they reached the crest of a low hill a short distance
ahead, which seemed to command a view of the country for some
distance around. If nothing could be seen of Martin from this hill,
he would face about and return to camp; and more than likely he
should find the old man there waiting for him. Hardly had he reached
this decision, however, when Kim stopped so suddenly that Jack and
the toboggan bumped into him, and stood with bristling hair and
stiffened muscles for a moment, and then made a frantic leap
forward, snarling and barking.

At the same time Jack seemed to have discovered the cause of his
mate’s excitement, and it was only by twisting the sled rope about a
sapling that Larry prevented them from dashing madly off into the
woods. Yet he was unable to discover the cause of their actions,
although he peered intently through the trees in all directions. But
whatever the cause, he knew that they had scented something quite
out of the ordinary; and as a precaution he drew the little rifle
from its case and made sure that the firing-pin was set for the
heavy cartridge.

Then he took a firm grip on Kim’s collar, putting all his weight
against the dog’s strength, and advanced cautiously through the
trees toward the top of the hill.

The crest of this hill had been cleared of large timber years before
by a forest fire, and there was an open space for several hundred
yards beyond. When Larry reached this cleared space he saw a sight
that made his heart leap into his throat and his hair seem to lift
his cap. His hand trembled so violently that he came near dropping
his rifle, and his breathing ceased altogether for a moment.

For at the opposite side of the clearing stood a huge animal, tall
and gaunt, its thick neck supporting a head like a great black
barrel crowned with a pair of thickly pointed horns that seemed as
long as the toboggan from tip to tip. The great creature stood
facing him, the long, coarse hair about its head and neck standing
out straight, its fore legs wide apart, its hind legs slightly bent
ready for a spring forward. All about it for a space of several
yards the snow was trampled into a hard bed and blotched with blood.

In the center of this trampled space was a huge boulder, and just
beside it a sapling perhaps six inches in diameter. Perched on the
top of the boulder and only a few inches out of reach of the great
antlers, old Martin lay huddled. Or, to be more exact, what appeared
to be a bundle of Martin’s clothes that looked as if they might have
been hurled there by the infuriated animal. The mystery of the old
man’s failure to return to camp was explained.

At the sight of the huge animal so close at hand the dogs became
absolutely frantic; and knowing that it would be folly to try to
control them further, and wishing to give them every possible
advantage in the fight that was now inevitable, the boy slipped the
harness from each.

As the dogs bounded toward the wounded animal, the moose sprang
forward to meet them, snorting fiercely; but in doing this the heavy
creature put itself at once at a disadvantage. For its hoofs broke
through the crust at every step, while the dogs kept their footing
on the surface, darting in and out, snapping fiercely at legs and
flank.

The noise of this battle roused Martin from the stupor into which he
had fallen, so that he raised his head, and then gradually dragged
himself into a sitting posture. Then, as he recognized the dogs, and
saw Larry hurrying forward, new life thrilled the old man, and he
began waving his hand and shouting feebly to the boy.

At first his voice was so low that the boy could not hear it above
the din; but as he approached the rock, waiting for a favoring
moment to place his one shot in some vital spot, he could make out
some of Martin’s instructions shouted through his trumpeted hands.

“Steady, boy, steady!” the old man shouted. “Wait till he turns his
head, and shoot between the eyes! Not now--wait till he turns--not
yet--!”

Just then the moose, frantic with pain and anger, caught sight of
the boy approaching him. At this discovery the huge animal seemed to
forget the dogs, and wheeling, made straight for Larry, head down,
bristles standing, and bloody foam blowing from its nose and mouth.

“Shoot! Shoot! For God’s sake shoot, Larry!” the old man screamed,
half rising, and then toppling back upon the rock.

But Larry needed no instructions. He had proved himself and his
weapon only yesterday, and he had the courage born of experience.
The first terror inspired by the huge animal had passed, and now he
stood with his feet braced wide apart on his snow-shoes, the rifle
at his shoulder and his eye fixed on the little bead of the front
sight as the huge animal plunged toward him. Kim and Jack, realizing
the impending danger to their master, buried their teeth in the
moose’s flanks on either side and hung on grimly causing the animal
to pause momentarily. This was Larry’s chance. There was a flash and
report, and the big animal, rearing upwards and sinking on its hind
legs, plunged sidelong into the snow and lay still. The heavy
steel-jacketed bullet had crashed into its brain, killing it
instantly.

Before the huge head fairly reached the ground both dogs were at the
animal’s throat, tearing and mangling, mad with the lust of battle.
Larry, reacting from the tense excitement, felt his knees sag under
him as he realized the result of the shot. But even this did not
make him forget to load his gun again instantly--a thing that becomes
automatic with the hunter--and approach the beast cautiously, ready
for another shot. But the dogs, with fangs buried in the creature’s
throat, gloating in the hot blood, bore silent witness that more
shots were unnecessary.

Then Larry’s pent-up emotions found expression in a wild shout as he
rushed to where old Martin lay.

But his feeling changed to dread apprehension when he reached the
base of the rock, saw where the blood had trickled down over the
side, and found that the old man had fallen back unconscious.
Perhaps his triumph had come too late after all! In an instant he
had kicked off his snow-shoes, climbed the sapling that rose beside
the rock, and was kneeling over the still, crumpled figure, his warm
hands caressing the white cheeks, his voice choked with emotion.

His warm touch revived the hunter, who opened his eyes slowly, and
then smiled faintly up at the boy.

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” the old fellow whispered; “get me
off this rock and build a fire, quick. I’m frozen.”

But getting the injured hunter off the rocks without hurting him
proved a difficult task. The sides were almost perpendicular, and
Martin too weak to help himself at all. So, after several futile
attempts, Larry was obliged to get the harnesses from the toboggan,
fasten the draw strap under the hunter’s arms, and in this manner
lower him over the side. Then the boy quickly gathered some sticks
and made a hot fire.

During most of this time Martin remained inanimate, but he revived
again when Larry had dragged him near the fire; and now he asked
faintly for water. A few gulps of the melted snow water from Larry’s
cup revived him perceptibly, and meanwhile the boy was chafing his
cold hands, and had removed his moccasins and drawn his feet close
to the fire.

Presently Martin asked feebly for food; but Larry shook his head.
For once he had forgotten one of the old man’s reiterated
instructions--that he should never go anywhere from camp without
taking at least one ration with him. When he started out he had only
expected to be gone a few hours, and in his perturbation he had
forgotten to take anything to eat.

But the old hunter’s wits had not completely failed him.

“The moose,” he said faintly.

And then the boy remembered that a month’s supply of food, upon
which the dogs were still feasting, was lying only a few feet away.
So in a few minutes he had a huge slice of moose steak suspended on
a stick over the fire, from which he cut off thin strips and fed to
the ravenous hunter.

During this process he had time to observe the nature of Martin’s
injury, although he was not quite sure of its exact location, as the
hunter’s clothes were rent and blood-stained in many places.

“It’s my left leg,” Martin said, interpreting the boy’s anxious
expression. “It’s all ripped to pieces. But it was the cold that was
killing me. Now I’m getting warm and feeling stronger every minute.
In another half hour I’ll be ready to take a ride home with you
while the sun is high.”

By the time the steak was consumed Martin was sitting up, taking
sips of hot water out of the tin cup from time to time. Every
movement caused him great pain, but he strove stoically to conceal
this from the boy.

“Harness up the dogs,” he said presently, “pack me into the
toboggan, and let’s start for camp. We haven’t any time to lose, for
it gets cold on a sled when the sun goes down.”

So Larry called the dogs, who were loth to leave their feast, packed
the old man into the bag on the toboggan so that only his head
showed above the flaps, and started.

Several times he had tried to get the old hunter to tell him how it
had all happened; but Martin put him off, assuring him that there
would be plenty of time for talking when they were back in camp
again.

Once the start was made there was no chance for talking, all Larry’s
energies being required to keep the now lazy dogs up to their usual
speed. And now he realized the wisdom of not feeding them until
their day’s work was done, as was Martin’s inflexible rule. He was
kept busy steering the toboggan around rough places that would jar
his passenger, as the old man’s excruciating pain was accentuated by
every additional shock. Yet Martin would not consider stopping, or
even slackening the pace; and as the dogs warmed to their work after
the first few miles they were able to make the camp just as the sun
was setting, all hands ready to drop from exhaustion.

They found Larry’s big fire still burning, and in a few minutes he
had warmed up the remains of the feast he had planned for the night
before. Then, when he had wrapped up the injured leg, and propped
the old hunter in a comfortable position before the fire, Martin was
ready to tell his story.

“Don’t you mind now, and look scared whenever I screw up my face,”
the old man began; “for the pain shoots around pretty bad at times.
But I’ll stand it all right, and I’ll kill many a bull moose to pay
for it, too.”

Then he chuckled softly in the old familiar manner.

“What makes me laugh,” he said, “is to think that all this time I
have been letting you think that I am something of a hunter, trying
to show you how to kill game; and here you go out and kill the moose
that came mighty near killing me. This is how it all happened:

“I came across signs of game after I had left the camp about an
hour, and the signs were good too; but still I didn’t get sight of
anything, and I kept going right on until well after noon. So I
decided to turn about and take the back track home, feeling sure
that I should have better luck on the way in. Sure enough, when I
came near the place where you found me, I found where a moose had
floundered along through the snow, probably scared from some yard by
my scent as I passed. He was standing near the big rock and as the
wind was blowing toward me, he hadn’t discovered me.

“So I worked around to get the rock between us, and then I sneaked
up so as to get a close shot and make sure of him. I ought to have
tried a longer shot at him, but you see the .38-40 is a pretty small
cartridge for moose except at close range, and I intended to get
him, sure.

“I sneaked along until I was right behind the rock, and then I
stepped out and shot point blank for his head. But just at the very
second I pulled the trigger the old rascal had to jerk his head
about six inches to one side, so that the bullet ploughed deep into
his neck, just where it would hurt and make him mad, but nothing
more.

“And then all the trouble happened in about three seconds. I jerked
down the lever to throw in another cartridge, for he was coming
right at me. But Jumping Jee-rusalem! if the old gun didn’t jam. The
head of the empty shell had broken off and stuck in the chamber! I
didn’t have any time for investigating, for the bull was right on
top of me, so I just jumped for the side of that rock. Nothing but a
fly could have gone up it--without help; and I knew that then as well
as I do now. But I hadn’t any choice. And the curious thing is that
the old moose himself furnished the _help_.

“He was so close to me when I jumped that one of his points caught
my leg and ripped it open as he went along; but at the same time he
flung his head up and threw me clean up the side of the rock. So by
the time he could stop and turn around I was up out of his reach.
But I was his meat, all the same. All he had to do was to sit down
and wait long enough and I’d freeze or starve to death.

“He had no notion of waiting, though,--that is, not at first. He
planned to come right up there and finish the job. But you see he
didn’t have any friend around to hook him in the leg and give him a
boost as I had, so he couldn’t make it. He tried for a full hour,
getting madder and madder every minute, snorting and pawing up the
snow, and then coming back for another try at me. And there I had to
sit and take it, with my gun lying down below in the snow.

“Pretty soon I saw that the old scoundrel had settled down for a
regular siege. He gave up trying to reach me, but he never took his
eyes off me, and just walked ’round and ’round that rock hoping I’d
come down. I’ll bet he made that circle a thousand times in two
hours.

“I thought when night came that he would start off and give it up,
and several times he did go away behind a clump of trees a few rods
away. But the minute I raised my head or moved a finger he was right
back on the job again.

“Then I knew that my time had come. It wasn’t such a terribly cold
night, you know, but I lay out there in the open with nothing over
me, and I was mighty weak from the blood I’d lost. And I knew that I
was slowly freezing to death. I thought of a dozen things to try,
but all of them were hopeless. There was no use in sliding off and
grabbing the rifle for by the time I could get the broken cartridge
out the moose would have killed me several times over. If it hadn’t
been for the leg I’d have come down and fought it out with the old
brute with my hunting knife. I have done that before with a wounded
bull. But I was so weak that I could hardly raise my body, let alone
my leg. So I just settled down to freeze.

“But you see I’m a tough old rooster, and when the sun came up this
morning I was still there, with my moose taking good care that I
should _stay_ there. By that time, though, I didn’t care much
whether he stayed or not. It didn’t make any difference. For I
couldn’t have crawled fifty yards if I’d had the chance I was so
stiff and weak.

“After a while I dozed off; and the next thing I remember I heard
the bull fighting with some wolves. I thought they were wolves then,
but I didn’t even open my eyes to see, although I hoped they’d kill
him. And then something sounded familiar about those wolves’ voices,
and I turned my head. And there was old Jack and Kim trying to even
up my score with the old critter.

“My God! boy, I never knew what it was to be glad about anything in
my life before! There you were coming with the little gun, and there
was Jack on one side and Kim on the other taking out hunks from the
old moose’s side at every jump, and--”

The old man stopped, and brushed his arm across his eyes, unable to
go on for a minute, while Larry sat blinking hard at the fire. But
presently the hunter regained his composure a little, and continued:

“And then when you fired and shot that old devil right between the
eyes, I was willing to die for sheer joy.”

The old man paused again and tried to force a little laugh.

“And to think that you had to come and kill him with the little gun,
while the best that I could do was to make him mad.”

And he patted the boy’s shaggy head affectionately.

“But you see, Martin, I’ve been having more practice lately than you
have,” the boy said, springing up. “Wait till I show you something.”

He darted out of the tent and came struggling back hauling the big
white wolf and dropped it before the fire, and then brought the
other three and laid them in a row for Martin’s inspection. His eyes
were shining with pride and the old hunter’s face beamed with
genuine admiration.

“Just four cartridges--one for each wolf,” Larry said proudly, “and a
little tap with a club thrown in for good measure.” And then he told
the old man the story of the wolves, and exhibited the rip in his
coat sleeves.

Several times during the recital Larry noticed that Martin’s face
twitched with the agonizing pain he was suffering, although the old
man tried hard to conceal it, protesting that it was a thing too
slight to be worth noticing.

“It isn’t the pain so much,” the old man said, at last. “I can stand
that all right. But I could stand it just a thousand times better if
I had my old pipe and one pinch of tobacco. Boy, I’d give one long
year of my life if I could have five minutes’ smoke. I’d get up and
fight a moose, or a grizzly, or both, right now for a dozen whiffs
of the old pipe.”

With a little laugh Larry jumped up, ran to their pile of plunder,
and fumbled in his ditty bag. Then he turned and held up a pipe and
a plug of tobacco for Martin to see.

“Will this new pipe do?” he asked, laughing, as he handed Martin the
precious articles.

The old man’s eyes were round with astonishment, and his hands
trembled with eagerness. They trembled so that he could hardly pare
off the shavings of the plug and load the pipe, and light it with
the brand that Larry handed him from the fire. But a few whiffs
steadied him.

“You see,” Larry explained, “when you told me to put something or
other into my ditty bag for luck, I couldn’t think of anything that
would be luckier than a pipe and some tobacco for you--just to buy
you off some time when you got cranky, you know. So here’s your
bribe to keep you good natured about my running off and leaving the
camp when you told me not to.”

“Well, this makes twice to-day that you’ve saved my life,” the old
man grinned, “so I’ll forgive you. And now pile some wood near me so
that I can keep the fire going, and then you crawl into bed and get
some sleep. I don’t suppose this moose leg of mine would let me
sleep anyhow, but even if it did I wouldn’t waste my time doing it
when there was a pipe and some tobacco around. I am almost glad now
that the old beast gouged me.”




                             CHAPTER XI

                      THE RETURN TO THE WRECK


Martin was in fine spirits when Larry finally crawled out of his
sleeping bag and set about getting breakfast next morning. The
injured leg was stiff and useless, to be sure, but the acute pain
had subsided and did not bother the old man except when he attempted
to move. “By to-morrow,” he assured the boy, “I’ll be ready to hit
the trail again.”

Larry, with a perplexed look, turned from his work of frying moose
meat to see if Martin was in earnest.

“I guess your tobacco has gone to your head, Martin, if you expect
to be able to use that leg much by to-morrow,” he said indulgently.

“I _don’t_ expect to be able to use it much by to-morrow,” Martin
replied simply, “but we’ll be moving all the same.”

Larry set the frying pan down beside the fire, and came in and stood
before the old man with his arms akimbo, scanning the old fellow’s
immobile face. For a moment or two they faced each other, neither of
them speaking and both looking very serious. Larry was puzzled but
determined.

“Now see here, Martin,” he began, “you don’t really suppose that you
are going to be able to travel to-morrow, do you?”

“I certainly do,” the old man replied without relaxing a muscle;
“and what’s more to the point, I’m going to!”

“But Martin,” Larry protested, “how do you expect that your leg
which is so sore you can’t even move it to-day, will be so you can
walk on it to-morrow?”

“I don’t,” Martin replied.

“Then how do you suppose you are going to stumble on through these
woods mile after mile,” Larry persisted.

“Who said anything about stumbling through these woods, or any other
woods?” the old hunter asked, with a twinkle in his eye. “You
shouldn’t jump to conclusions, Larry.” And he chuckled at the boy’s
discomfiture.

Larry gave a defiant toss of his head and returned to his frying
pan. “Kim and Jack and I are going to eat our breakfast now,” he
announced with a grin. “Perhaps you can beg some breakfast too when
you are ready to tell me what you are driving at.”

“All right,” Martin capitulated; “I’m too hungry to be stubborn.
Bring on the breakfast and we’ll talk while we eat. I’ve been
thinking this thing all out during the night, and here it is:

“We’re going to travel to-morrow, but I intend to ride. I am going
to have you pack me on the sled with a few days’ stock of food, and
get Kim and Jack to haul me. You can come along as escort, if you
care to. In fact if you don’t care to I shan’t go, and we’ll spend
the winter here and starve, instead of going back to the yacht to
get fat.”

At this announcement Larry gave a shout that brought the dogs to
their feet in surprise. The idea of returning to their comfortable
quarters on the coast instead of struggling on through the
wilderness seemed a vision of perfect happiness to the boy.

Martin outlined his plan completely while they ate their breakfast.
They would take the two sleeping bags, the tent, and a supply of
food, harness the two dogs to one of the sleds and “hit the back
trail for ‘home,’” as he called the wreck. He would sit on the
toboggan in one of the sleeping bags and direct the dogs while Larry
would trudge behind helping to steady the sled and prevent it
overturning in the rough places. In this way they could make the
return trip in four days easily unless a storm came up. If a storm
came they would simply “hole up” and wait until it blew over. When
the wounded leg had healed, as it would very shortly in their
comfortable camp, they would make another start for civilization.

It took Larry the greater part of the day to make the necessary
preparations for this trip. Under Martin’s direction he rigged one
of the toboggans with handles at the back, so arranged that he could
use them for steadying the sled or helping the dogs in the hard
places as he walked behind. He also made a back-piece of twisted
branches for Martin to lean against as he sat on the sled,
strengthening this rough framework with cord and strips of canvas.
When finished Martin declared that it looked like a movable brush
heap; but he admitted that it was strong and serviceable, and made a
comfortable support for his back.

The second toboggan and the extra provisions were suspended from
limbs high above the ground where they would be out of the reach of
animal prowlers, and available for future use should they ever need
them.

They broke camp the next day before dawn and headed the dogs out
into the open expanse of glistening crust. There was no need to
direct their course, nor stimulate them to top speed. A trained
sledge dog remembers directions better than a man, and is as keen
for the return trip toward home as his human companions. Indeed Jack
and Kim showed such enthusiasm and found that their load ran so
easily on the hard crust that Larry had difficulty in keeping up
with them at times except by clinging to the handles. Crossing the
plain, which consumed so much time on the outward trip, required
only three hours for the return; and even in the woods that lay
beyond their progress was almost twice as fast as before.

Despite Larry’s efforts, however, the sled received severe bumps at
times, that made Martin groan with pain. But the old hunter would
not allow any stops or slackening of speed for so trivial a matter
as his personal discomfort. His dominant idea was to get back “home”
as quickly as possible, and his attitude spurred Larry on to exert
himself to the limit of endurance. By sundown they had covered a
quarter of the distance to the coast; and in the afternoon of the
fourth day they came tearing into the home camp, the dogs barking
frantically and Martin and Larry shouting their delight.

Here they found everything practically as they had left it, so that
they had only to open the tent flaps, light a fire in front, and sit
down to rest and enjoy themselves.

But it was no part of Martin’s plan to let Larry sit idle during the
long weeks that lay ahead of them, or to remain inactive himself one
hour longer than his injured leg compelled him to. He knew that
idleness and lack of diversions were bad things for the boy, who
would very soon feel the strain of their solitary surroundings if
not kept so fully occupied that the time would pass quickly. He
could offer few diversions, but he had planned plenty of active
work.

His first move next day, therefore, was to have Larry haul him to a
point where he could inspect the wreck. He found it frozen in where
they had left it, and wedged into a huge mass of ice that would hold
it fast until the warm spring weather. So he transferred their
living quarters temporarily to the after cabin, which Larry made
snug with a little tinkering. Here, warmed by the galley stove, he
could give his wound more effective treatment than in the open tent.
Meanwhile he set Larry to work building a hut made from the wood of
the forward cabin.

The task of tearing this cabin to pieces was even greater than that
of actually putting it together again, but Larry set about it with
saw, axe, and crow-bar. At first he worked alone; but after a few
days Martin was able to crawl up on deck and superintend things from
his seat in a sleeping bag, while the dogs acted as interested
spectators. The days were very short now in this far northern
latitude, and every hour of daylight was devoted to the wrecking
work, leaving the “housekeeping” work to be done by lamplight. In
this way the boy was kept so completely occupied, doing and
accomplishing, that there was little time left to dwell upon the
loneliness of their situation. So that, on the whole, the time
passed quickly and pleasantly. This was what Martin had hoped to
accomplish.

By the time the house-building material was secured, the old hunter
could hobble about on extemporized crutches and give directions
about building the hut, and sometimes assist Larry in steadying the
boards that held the frame in place. And when their new home had
reached a stage that called for finishing touches he was able to
handle hammer and saw in performing some of the lighter work.

The hut was a curious little creation, with round port holes for
windows and a ship’s cabin door, which gave it the appearance of
having been cast up from the sea. It was made of the tight fitting
boards, and rendered doubly wind proof by two thicknesses of canvas
stretched over every part of it and nailed securely. Inside it was
made attractive with all manner of ornaments taken from the yacht.
There were two comfortable bunks arranged cabin-fashion one above
the other at one end, a table and chairs, a case of books, and the
little stove from the galley that kept the room warm even in the
coldest weather. With its complete equipment, even to spring cots
and mattresses, Martin declared it the finest winter home ever owned
by shipwrecked hunters.

By Christmas day it was completed even to the smallest detail, and
on that day they moved in and formally took possession, deserting
the yacht forever. This day was made one of special merriment and
rejoicing, for Martin was able to dispense with his cane or crutches
for the first time, and use his leg in a natural manner without
assistance. It was still weak, but strengthening so rapidly that it
promised soon to be completely restored to power. So, to celebrate
this combination of happy events, they brought all manner of
delicacies from the pile of stores, and devoted the first part of
the day to preparing for a grand feast.

In the afternoon they harnessed the dogs tandem to the toboggan,
Martin took his place in the “movable brush heap,” and all went for
a “joy ride” of several miles through the woods in a great circle
that brought them back to the cabin about sundown. In several places
on this journey they crossed caribou tracks, the sight of which made
Martin’s eyes sparkle, and he predicted great hunting trips before
the winter was much older.

In the evening they had their grand dinner which the dogs attended,
all hands doing full justice to every course. After the feast Martin
and Larry played cards until far past their usual bedtime. Taken all
in all Christmas day proved a very cheerful one in the great
wilderness.

The old man had cherished the hope that his leg would heal and gain
strength so rapidly that they could make another attempt to reach
the settlements before the winter was over. For he knew that if they
did not do so they must wait until the unsettled weather of spring
was over, and the ground dry enough for reasonably easy traveling.
At that season they would encounter the terrible wood flies and
insects, far more to be dreaded in certain regions than cold and
snow. But it would be madness to attempt to make the winter journey
until his strength had returned fully, and he soon realized that
this would not be until well on toward spring. Very soon he was able
to take fairly long snow-shoe tramps, assisted by the dogs and the
toboggan, but hauling a heavy sled was quite out of the question. So
he finally resigned himself to spending the winter at the cabin.

Larry had shown such aptitude in learning the many secrets of
woodcraft that he determined to make a “land pilot,” as he called it
facetiously, of him during their exile. As the boy had become
proficient in the use of the rifle, Martin devoted part of the time
to instructions in the art of trapping. They were in the land of the
silver fox,--the most highly prized skin of all the fur-bearers--and
so they concentrated their efforts to catch some of these wary
animals. Meanwhile they made constantly lengthening hunting
excursions after caribou, Larry occupying the position of chief
hunter with the old man playing assistant. But on these hunting
trips the little gun that Larry had carried at first was left
hanging on its peg in the hut. In its place Larry now carried a
repeater similar to Martin’s--a heavy weapon, that gave the boy many
an arm ache.

Game was not very plentiful, however, and it required constant
efforts to keep their larder supplied with fresh meat. But this
scarcity of game gave the old hunter more opportunities for teaching
the boy all manner of woodland tricks to secure it. Meanwhile he
imparted to his pupil the most important and difficult feature of
woodcraft--the art of “being at home” in the woods--to know directions
instinctively, to observe and interpret every sign, and to take care
of himself under all conditions.

Several times, when the injured leg was stronger and his pupil more
advanced, Martin made practical tests of the boy’s progress. He
would select a day when snow was falling, harness the dogs to the
toboggan loaded with tent, sleeping-bags, and provisions, and make a
zigzag journey into the heart of the woods. Here they would pitch
camp and wait until the storm ceased. By that time their trail would
be completely obliterated. Then, without any guiding suggestions, he
had Larry take the lead and pilot them back to the cabin.

At first the boy would become confused, and be obliged to call upon
the old hunter to straighten him out; and sometimes Martin allowed
him to become completely at fault before he would aid him. But
little by little Larry learned to observe and remember
instinctively, until presently Martin found it impossible to confuse
him even on long trips.

He learned how to interpret the signs of game, also, how to approach
it successfully, and where to expect to find the wood denizens under
the ever varying conditions. And when they were successful with gun
or traps, Martin taught him how to skin and dress the game, and to
care for the pelts.

“We’ll have to leave all these good furs behind us, I know,” the old
man would say; “but we won’t waste them; and perhaps some other
fellow will come along some day and find them. There’s just one pelt
that we won’t leave, if we get it. That’s the silver fox.”

But this silver fox is a wily fellow. He seems to realize the value
of his coat; or at least he knows that it is very valuable to
himself, and uses his cunning to retain it. Week after week Martin
used his knowledge and Larry’s increasing skill to trap one of these
fine fellows, only to be disappointed on each occasion. They would
find where Reynard had hovered about their trap, sometimes actually
stepping over it to steal the bait, knowing in some occult manner
just where the fatal jaws were concealed. It was in vain that Martin
coated the trap with wax to disguise the scent, covering his hands
and feet with the skins of the wild animals in setting or
approaching the trap. Reynard refused to be deceived.

But perhaps success made him careless, although it was probably the
fault of the thin covering of wet snow that fell one day late in the
spring. For at last, after Larry had almost given up hope of getting
even a single silver fox skin, the inevitable happened. Poor Reynard
walked deliberately into a trap that had been set rather carelessly
to catch a marten.

When Larry discovered this long sought prize held securely by one
foot in the jaws of the trap, he gave a shout of delight at his
unexpected success. The little animal had evidently been caught
several hours before, and from the appearance of the ground about
the trap had struggled fiercely to free itself. But now it seemed
resigned to its fate, and stood crouching, watching Larry’s approach
without making any further effort to escape. Even when the boy
raised a heavy stick to despatch the captive, the little animal made
no attempt to evade the blow, acting more like a dog resigned to
take punishment from its master than a denizen of the wilderness
accustomed to battle for its existence. But its wide, intelligent
eyes, seemed to beg mutely for mercy.

The actions of the little animal completely unnerved the boy: he
could not strike the crouching figure. If the fox had struggled
fiercely, or attempted to fight for its life as a mink or marten
always did, Larry could have despatched it at once; but that
submissive attitude completely disarmed him. He could not resist the
mute appeal in those eyes.

He lowered the club and turned away, ashamed of his weakness. But
when he turned again, determined to overcome his scruples, the eyes
met his with their mute plea, and again he lowered the club.

What would Martin think of such girlishness? he asked himself. Would
Martin, or any good hunter, hesitate to snatch the prize that he had
been struggling for all winter? He was sure they would not, and he
despised himself for his weak-heartedness.

The longer he hesitated the surer he felt that he could not strike.
Then the thought obtruded itself: Who would ever know if he did not
strike? Who would there be to judge him but his own conscience if he
were to set the little animal free instead of killing it? The moment
these thoughts passed through his mind he knew that the fox had won
its freedom. He should have struck at once: now it was too late.

But freeing the captive foot from the jaws of the trap without
encountering the animal’s sharp, white teeth was no easy task; for
he could not expect the fox to interpret his humane action
correctly, and stand mutely while he forced down the trap spring. So
it was not until after several fruitless attempts that he succeeded
in placing a heavy limb across the spring, and by bending it down,
allowed the jaws to fall open and release the foot.

During this manipulation the fox made no attempt to struggle, simply
crouching down and watching the boy with its haunting eyes. And even
when the jaws of the trap relaxed it did not bound away as Larry had
expected, but slipped out of sight stealthily and with no apparent
haste, not yet fully assured of its unexpected good fortune.

The boy watched the animal disappear with mingled emotions of shame
and satisfaction. But when it was out of sight he drew a long
breath, and went back to camp in a sober mood.

That night at supper Martin was unusually talkative. In about a
week, he said, they should start for home if the fine weather
continued, and the thought of it put him in a happy frame of mind.
But Larry ate his supper in silence, trying to excuse himself for
his deception, and his “chicken-heartedness” in freeing the fox.

Martin, who was watching him out of the corners of his eyes,
suddenly surprised him by stopping in the middle of a story to ask:

“Larry, what happened out in the woods to-day that you are so
ashamed of?”

The boy replied evasively at first, but the old hunter shook his
head incredulously.

“See here, Martin,” Larry said at last, “what would you do if you
happened to come along to a marten trap and found a silver fox
there--not a dead fox, you know, and not one that snarled and snapped
and tried to bite you. But a fox that had fought to get loose until
he couldn’t fight any more, but just stood there and looked you
straight in the eye even when you raised a club to kill him, and
seemed to say to you:

“‘That’s right, take your club and kill me, I can’t get out of your
way now. I’m only a poor little fox, anyway, while you are a big,
brave boy, with guns and dogs and traps, and you needn’t even come
near enough so that I can bite you. You have been trying to kill me
all winter, just because some woman will give you a thousand dollars
for the fur I wear to keep warm in, and now you’ve got your chance
to do it.’--What would you do, Martin, if a fox looked at you and
talked to you with his eyes like that?”

“What would I do, Larry?” the old man repeated, looking at the roof
and puffing slowly at his pipe. “Why, I’d say, ‘Martin, here’s your
chance to make a thousand dollars mighty easy. I’ll just hit him a
rap on the head, and take him home and skin him.’ That’s what I’d
_say_, Larry. But what I’d do when I saw the little fellow’s big
brown eyes asking me to let him go home to his family--what I’d _do_,
probably, would be to look all around to make sure that no one was
looking to see what a coward I am in my heart, and then I’d spring
the trap and turn the little rascal loose.”

With a bound Larry was out of his chair.

“That’s just what I did this afternoon, Martin,” he shouted, dancing
joyfully about the room to relieve his pent-up feelings.

“And so you sat here all the evening calling yourself a coward,”
said Martin, when Larry had subsided, “just because you couldn’t
bear to kill a fox in a trap. How about killing wolves, Larry, and
moose that are trying to kill you? Cowards don’t act that way, boy.
And the bravest men usually have the softest spots in their hearts.”




                            CHAPTER XII

                     THE EARLY MORNING VISITOR


Martin and Larry were roused the next morning at daylight by the
dogs who were barking excitedly in their shed outside. Evidently
some animal was approaching the hut too close for their approval. So
Larry, hoping for a pot shot from the window, slipped out of bed,
took down his rifle stealthily, and cautiously opened the port on
the landward side. Just then he heard voices outside, and the next
moment some one pounded sharply against the door and turned the
latch. In the doorway stood Mr. Ware, with half a dozen sailors
crowding behind him.

With a shout Martin was out of his bunk, while Larry, dropping his
gun, collided with the old hunter as they rushed together into Mr.
Ware’s outstretched arms, and for five minutes the three were locked
together in a tangled embrace dancing about like happy children,
each asking questions which no one answered. Then Larry discovered
that one of the sailors was an old acquaintance from the crew of the
yacht, and the sailor came in for a similar wild demonstration,
while Mr. Ware stood laughing and gasping for breath. And all this
time the dogs, recognizing that something quite out of the ordinary
was taking place inside, were adding their voices to the din, and
struggling madly to get out of their shed.

Finally Martin disengaged himself and sank into a chair overcome
with exhaustion and emotion. For the coming of Mr. Ware was like one
risen from the dead. And then followed a flood of questions and
explanations.

Mr. Ware and his companions in the boat had escaped quite as
miraculously as had Martin and Larry, although they had suffered far
greater hardships in the storm. They had left the shore in their
boat and were making an exploratory trip along the mouth of the
inlets of the bay just before the storm broke that destroyed the
yacht. The fury of the gale drove them helplessly along the coast,
and pitched them about, breaking their oars and tearing loose their
rudder, so that they were completely disabled. Fortunately they had
rounded the point of land that marked the entrance to the bay, so
that instead of being blown against the rocks they were driven along
parallel to the coast-line for a time, and thus saved from the
breakers.

But they were hurried from this peril into another quite as great,
as the boat was in danger of swamping at any moment in the waves.
For now the wind shifted and blew them steadily out to sea, as they
were without means of controlling or steadying the boat, which
filled with water continually, and was only kept afloat by ceaseless
bailing with the pots and pans of their cooking outfit.

All that night they worked, buffeted by the gale, with no idea where
they might be drifting. But when morning came and the gale subsided
there was no land in sight. That made little difference to them, as
without oars or sails they could not have reached it in any event.
Fortunately the boat was supplied with a box of sea biscuit and a
keg of water--a precaution against emergencies always taken by Mr.
Ware in manning his boats. So that while they were almost frozen,
they were not hungry or thirsty during the six days and nights of
their aimless drifting. But their days seemed numbered, as they had
little hope of being picked up so late in the season.

Imagine their delight, therefore, when on the seventh morning they
discovered a three master heading almost directly for them. The
captain of the vessel had seen them, and changed his course to pick
them up.

As soon as he was safely on board Mr. Ware made tempting offers to
the captain to turn about and attempt to find the yacht. But his
efforts were unsuccessful. The schooner was far out of her course
and must make the best time possible to her English port, and no
offer could tempt the captain to turn back. Moreover, as he pointed
out, it would do little good to return if the yacht was lost;
whereas if she were safe, she would make her way back to New York
and would be waiting for Mr. Ware on his return.

So he was forced to curb his impatience for three long weeks while
the schooner floundered her way across the ocean, and two weeks more
before he reached his home. By that time winter had set in and it
would be madness to attempt to approach the frozen Labrador coast at
that time, even if he had hoped to find any of his party alive.

But he laid his plans for an early start in the spring, and the
moment he could do so with reasonable safety he secured a staunch
little steamer and started on his search. They had arrived near the
entrance of the little bay the night before, but it grew dark before
they rounded the point where they could make observations. Shortly
after this the man in the lookout reported what he believed to be a
light up among the rocks on shore. It was so faint that it could
barely be made out through the glasses; and presently it
disappeared.

This discovery kept Mr. Ware awake all night; and as soon as it was
near daylight, he had come off in a life-boat to investigate,
leaving the steamer to follow cautiously by daylight. Imagine his
delight, then, at finding the snug little hut, with Martin and Larry
safe inside.

When Mr. Ware had finished his recital Martin told him in detail the
experiences that he and Larry had had during the winter; of their
start for home, the blizzard, his encounter with the moose, and
their final return to the coast and the comfortable time spent in
the little hut.

“And you got here just in the nick of time, Mr. Ware,” he commented.
“In another week we should have been footing it cross-country for
home; and no knowing where we should have landed.”

While they had been talking the little steamer had come into the bay
and dropped anchor half a mile off shore ready to receive her
passengers. The captain, anxious to be away from the dangerous
locality as quickly as possible, kept signalling repeatedly with
short blasts of the whistle, and at last Mr. Ware decided that it
was time for all hands to be off. But the snug little hut, tucked
away up under the rock among the spruces, appealed strongly to his
fancy; and Martin and Larry actually seemed reluctant to leave it
now that their long-looked-for chance to do so had come. They had
spent many happy hours in their tight little room, and it seemed
like treachery to an old friend to turn their backs upon it forever.
The old hunter said nothing of his thoughts on this score, however,
and set about gathering together the articles he was to take away.
But Larry, with a lump rising in his throat, found it difficult to
repress his feelings.

“I wish it could go with us,” he said, stopping in his work to take
a wistful look at the many familiar objects they were leaving. “It
will be pretty lonesome for the little house standing up here all
alone year after year and never seeing any of us again.” And the boy
leaned over his work again to hide his emotions.

“We’re not going to desert it for good, Larry,” said Mr. Ware,
patting the boy on the head kindly. “This is the best little
shooting lodge I know of. So every year we will come up here for a
hunt, and Martin will take us to the best hunting places, and keep
us out of mischief generally, as he always does. What do you say,
Martin?”

But the old hunter shook his head.

“I’ll be mighty glad to come every year, Mr. Ware,” he said
laughing; “but I leave the hunting and guiding to a younger fellow
who can do it just as well, or better. That’s the ‘younger fellow’ I
mean, right here,” and he pointed to Larry. “He knows the country as
well as I do, and he can follow a trail, shoot a rifle, and run a
camp with the best of them. And if you ever get into a tight place
out there in the woods, he’ll steer you out of it safely every time.
For he’s learned his trade up here this winter. He’s a regular
forest pilot now--a real woodsman, sure enough.”

                              THE END.