Afar in the Forest Part 7

"Master 'Possum" was not going to be caught so easily, however. In an instant it was up a tree, and lost to sight amid the branches, while the dogs yelped around it.

"The creature is lost," cried Reuben.

"No fear ob dat," answered Quambo. "We soon find him out."

Then he and Mike, with the rest of us, began to collect all the decayed branches to be found above the snow. We soon bad enough wood for a fire; when Quambo striking a light, it quickly blazed up, and the flames exhibited the opossum making its way along one of the branches. The dogs leaped about, and yelped loudly. Quambo had thrown himself on the ground to watch the animal's proceedings; for the moment we had attempted to take aim, it had nimbly sprung round to the dark side, apparently watching us as eagerly as we were watching it. Mike on this hurried off to a little distance and lifted his rifle. He fired, and down came the opossum.

The dogs seized it, and in a few moments life was extinct. There was no shamming now, though the Irishman gave it another blow, after we had taken off the dogs, just to make sure. He having slung it over his back, we put out the fire to prevent the risk of igniting the trees, and proceeded homewards well content with our evening's sport.

It was the last idle day we had for some time, for we had an abundance of work to get through before the return of spring, which was now rapidly approaching. It was the least pleasant time of the year, too; for we had thaws of two or three days at a time, during which the hardened snow was turned into slush. Then frost would come on again, and hold the timber with such a grasp that we could not move it. We occupied the time in putting up sheds, and in such other work as could be done before the ground was clear. No one, however, complained; for we knew that the snow would soon disappear, that the leaves would again come forth, and that the rivers would be open, when we should be able to move about much more rapidly in our canoes than we had done over the frozen ground.

CHAPTER FOUR.

UNCLE MARK'S GOOD OPINION OF REUBEN--MIKE LAFFAN'S FIDDLE--THE BEAVER-- REUBEN'S DESIRE TO TURN TRAPPER--QUAMBO TAKES A PIPE--KEPENAU'S CANOE-- ASHATEA PADDLES REUBEN HOME--KEPENAU'S SAGACITY--UNCLE MARK WELCOMES KEPENAU AND HIS DAUGHTER--THE OLD TRAPPER--REUBEN CARRIES SAMSON'S PACK--ASHATEA IS TAUGHT ENGLISH BY LILY AND DORA--MARTIN G.o.dFREY'S VISIT TO THE SETTLEMENT--KEPENAU'S AND ASHATEA'S DEPARTURE--SANDY MCCOLL, THE HALF-BREED--A VISIT TO KEPENAU--PORTAGING.

The summer had now come. The trees were all decked with their rich and varied foliage; the notes of the feathered inhabitants were heard in the forest; and numerous animals which had either gone south during the winter, or had concealed themselves in sheltered places, were moving about. There had been too much ploughing and sowing to allow of my indulging in my favourite pursuits. All I could do was to run over and pay my uncle and aunt a visit; but it may be that Lily was the chief attraction.

I found her friend Dora with her one day. She was certainly a very nice girl, although not equal to Lily by a long way, in my opinion. They inquired whether we had seen anything of Kepenau and his daughter Ashatea.

"They have not yet appeared," I answered; "nor have we received any tidings of them."

"Dora wants to make the acquaintance of a real Indian girl, fit to be a heroine," said Lily, laughing. "She has. .h.i.therto only seen the wretched squaws who appear in the Eastern States. She can scarcely believe that Ashatea is the interesting creature I describe her."

I said that I would try to communicate with Kepenau, if I could learn his whereabouts from any pa.s.sing Indians.

"Oh do!" said Lily; "and let him understand how glad we shall be to see him and his daughter again."

While we were talking Reuben came in, and offered to accompany me back to the hut. He, like me, had been very busy all the spring. He certainly did not look well suited for hard labour; but his face was more bronzed than heretofore, and he seemed perfectly well. Wishing the girls good-bye, we shouldered our guns, and commenced the walk to the hut. There was no risk of losing our way at this time, for the days were long, and there was a bright moon that evening.

Uncle Mark welcomed Reuben, whom he liked for his straightforward character and honesty.

"I am glad you have got such a companion as that young fellow," he said to me. "When two harum-scarum fellows a.s.sociate, they are sure to get into trouble; but you two will help each other out of difficulties, should you unexpectedly fall into them."

Mike amused us that evening with a tune on his fiddle; and Quambo diverted us still more by a dance he performed to the music, which made Reuben, who was not addicted to laughing, almost split his sides.

We agreed to have a long ramble into the forest next day, my uncle giving me leave of absence. He could not spare Mike, but he allowed Quambo to accompany us.

"We can cook our dinner without him," I said; "though, to be sure, we cannot expect to dress it as well as he would."

"Ah! Ma.s.sa Mark, poor black fellow do one t'ing well; you do ebery t'ing well," observed Quambo, with a grimace, by which he intended to show that he was paying a deserved compliment.

We carried our guns, with provisions in our knapsacks to last us for a day, although we expected to kill more game than we should want. As we wished to make a long excursion, we started at daybreak; that is to say, Reuben, Quambo, and I, with the dogs. Reuben had a great desire to see a beaver settlement which I had once visited when we first came into that part of the country; and I thought that I could find my way to it.

Quambo amused us, as we walked along, with all sorts of tales about beavers, racc.o.o.ns, opossums, bears, and other animals, with the habits of which he was well acquainted.

The beaver is a good-sized animal, being two and a half feet long exclusive of the tail, which is one foot more. It is of a deep chestnut colour; the hair very fine, smooth, and glossy. The Indians use its incisor teeth, which are very large and hard, to cut the bone or horn with which they tip their spears. It is a rodent, or gnawing animal.

It has a broad, horizontal, flattened tail, nearly of an oval form, which is covered with scales. The hind feet are webbed, and, with the aid of the tail, which acts as a rudder, enable it to swim through the water with ease and rapidity. Except in one respect, I do not know that it can be considered a sagacious animal; but it is a marvellous engineer, its faculties being employed in building houses, and in forming dams for the protection of its village.

One of its chief characteristics is the power it possesses of producing a substance termed "castor,"--which is contained in two bags, each about the size of a hen's egg. This castor is peculiarly attractive to beavers. They scent it at a distance, and invariably make their way towards it. No sooner does the beaver discover the delicious odour than he sits upright, sniffs about in every direction, and squeals with excitement until he can get up to it. The trapper, knowing this, always carries a supply of castor, or bark-stone; and when he reaches a stream or any other water near which he believes beavers may be found, he sets his trap, about six inches under the water. He then chews the end of a twig, dips it in the castor, and sticks it in with the scented end uppermost, just a little above the water. The nearest beaver, on discovering the scent, hurries up to the spot; and, if a young animal, is nearly certain to be caught by the trap. The older beavers are more knowing and cautious, and frequently bite off the end of the twig without entangling themselves.

Another curious circ.u.mstance connected with this "castoreum" is, that as soon as one beaver has deposited any of it on the ground, the beavers from another lodge go to the spot, and after covering it with earth and leaves, deposit their own "castoreum" on it. When they have gone away, others in turn perform the same operation; and thus the process goes on till a heap four or five feet in height has been raised. No one has as yet been able to ascertain the object of this proceeding. It gives the trapper, however, the means of catching the poor creatures--means which they would undoubtedly withhold, if they had the power. Like human beings, they are sufferers from their own acts.

The teeth of the beavers are sharp and powerful, and their jaws possess an extraordinary amount of strength. This enables them to bite through wood, tear the bark from trees, and chew vegetable substances of all sorts. During summer they regale themselves on fruits and plants of various descriptions; but their winter stock of food consists of the bark of the birch, plane, and other trees--and even of the young wood itself, which they steep in water before devouring it.

Their favourite resort is a stream or a pool near trees. Here they will a.s.semble to the number of some hundreds, living in communities, and working together. They select, when they can, a stream with a current, because it affords them the means of conveying wood and other materials for their habitations. They choose such parts as will afford them depth of water sufficient to resist the frost in winter, and prevent it freezing to the bottom. When, however, they find that there is not depth enough for this purpose, they build a dam across the stream, at a convenient distance below their habitations. If the current is gentle, the dam is made perfectly straight; but if rapid, it is constructed with a considerable curve, the convex side being towards the upper part of the stream. The materials employed are drift wood, green willows, birch, and poplar; these are placed horizontally, and kept down by mud and stones. So strong do these dams become, that they are capable of resisting a considerable force both of water and ice; for generally the wood, taking root, shoots upwards, and forms ultimately a thick hedge.

In some cases even trees sprout up, in the branches of which the birds form their nests.

Beavers build their houses of the same materials as their dams, and of various sizes, according to the number of the inmates. These, however, do not often exceed four or eight old ones, and from six to fourteen young ones. The houses are of a circular form, elevated some feet above the surface of the water; but the entrance is always low down beneath it. They are more rudely constructed than the dams, too. The wood is laid nearly horizontally, and crosswise; the branches, which project inwards, they cut off with their teeth. First there is a layer of wood, and then one of mud and stones; and so they work on till a sufficient height is gained, when the roof, of rough branches, is placed on the top, and plastered down with mud and stones.

Such was the interesting account which Quambo gave us as we walked along.

No event worthy of description occurred during our walk, though it took us some hours to reach the spot for which I was directing our course.

I was not disappointed. As we approached it cautiously, we caught sight of several beavers running about on the banks of the stream, some nibbling away at the trunks of saplings and small trees which they were engaged in felling. Had we fired, we might have killed two or three; but the rest would have disappeared, and we should then have lost the opportunity of observing them. We therefore crept on, concealing ourselves among the thick underwood.

At length I was afraid, should we get closer, that we might make some noise and alarm the animals. I therefore made a sign to my companions to stop; and looking down, we could discern one of the dams I have spoken of carried across the stream from one side to the other, and apparently not quite finished. Though several beavers were running about it, they were not at work; indeed, all their operations are carried on during darkness. Nature, of course, has given them the instinct to work at this time, which saves them the destruction that would otherwise probably overtake them, both from men and beasts.

After watching them for some time, I wished to retire and let them amuse themselves undisturbed; but Quambo took it into his head to give a loud shout, when in an instant the startled creatures scampered off, and dived under the water. Our chance of seeing more of them was gone; they were evidently on the watch for us, for now and then I saw a snout popping up above the surface, to ascertain if we had taken our departure.

We made our way along the banks of the stream for some distance, till we saw before us a broad expanse of water; and we discovered that it was a shallow lake or pond, bordered by reeds, and with numerous dead trees rising up out of the water near its sh.o.r.es. It struck me that this lake had been produced by the beaver-dams; and on our proceeding downwards towards what appeared to be its outlet, we found what had the appearance of being a long bank, of a convex form, stretched directly across the stream. This, on further examination, I had no doubt was the work of beavers. Alders and willows, and other water-loving trees of considerable size, were growing out of it; and digging down to a slight depth, we found that it consisted of lengths of the trunks of young trees, now rapidly decaying and turning into a vegetable mould, thus affording nourishment to all sorts of plants.

Above the surface of the lake were numerous beaver-houses, and after we had concealed ourselves for some time we caught sight of the inhabitants coming forth and swimming about; while one or two knowing old fellows climbed to the roof of their houses, to keep a look-out, as we supposed, and give notice of approaching danger. We might have shot several, but without the dogs we should not have been able to recover them. Indeed, their skins would have been of much less value than those caught in traps. After watching them for some time, then, we agreed that we ought to be on our homeward way, or we should certainly be benighted. Though we had found the path easily enough in daylight, it would be a hard matter to do so in the dark.

"I should very much like to turn trapper," said Reuben to me as we walked along. "I once heard a good deal about the lives the trappers lead, from a fine old man who stopped at our house one night, on his way to dispose of his packs of skins at one of the fur-traders' posts."

"I suspect that it must be a very hard life, and you would soon get tired of it, Reuben," I answered.

"As to that, I fancy that when I got accustomed to the hardships I should like it more and more; but I would be a trapper on my own hook-- have my own animals and traps, hunt where I chose, and sell my peltries to whom I pleased. Our old friend had a horse and two mules. He rode the horse, and the mules served to carry his packs. He had six traps, which he carried in a leathern bag called his trap-sack. I was particularly struck by his appearance as he rode up to our cottage. His costume was a hunting-shirt of dressed buckskin, ornamented with long fringes; pantaloons of the same material, decorated with porcupine-quills hanging down the outside of the leg. He wore moccasins on his feet, and a flexible felt hat upon his head. Under his right arm, and suspended from his left shoulder, hung his powder-horn and bullet-pouch, in which he carried b.a.l.l.s, flint, and steel His long knife, in a sheath of buffalo, hung from a belt round his waist--made fast to it by a steel chain. Also, he carried a tomahawk; and slung over his shoulder was his long heavy rifle; while from his neck hung his pipe-holder, garnished with beads and porcupine-quills.

"He had come many hundreds of miles from the west, having trapped as far off as the Rocky Mountains, and had met with all sorts of adventures among the Indians, from whom he had often narrowly escaped with his life. He said that he would take me with him, as he much wanted a companion, and would answer for my life with his own; though I should run no more risk than he did, if I only followed his directions. But my father would not hear of it, and was quite angry with the old man for putting the idea into my head; so, of course, I had to give it up.

"'Well, Reuben, my boy,' he said as he rode away, 'should your father change his mind, and you hold fast to yours, when I come back I will take you with me.'

"But he never has come back since."

I laughed at Reuben's notion; for, knowing him as I did, I saw that he was utterly unfit for the sort of life he proposed to lead, and would be heartily sick of it before long. He had a fertile imagination, and had pictured a trapper's life as something very delightful, although I was sure he would in reality hate it. And I believe that is the case with many other boys,--especially with those who take it into their head to go to sea, and who have never been on board a ship, and know nothing whatever of sea-life.

We had now performed the greater part of our journey home, and had reached the bank of the larger river, where it extended into lake-like dimensions, narrowing again shortly to its former width. Here several rocks were seen rising out of it--the waters rushing between them with great force, and forming a cataract, down which I should have thought it impossible for the strongest boat to make its way without being dashed to pieces.

At this point we sat down on the bank to rest and take some refreshment, when Quambo pulled out his pipe.

"You no smoke, young gen'lemen; but ole neegur, he fond of baccy, and you no object," said Quambo.

Quambo was always a pattern of politeness. We begged him to smoke as much as he liked, although we had not taken to it ourselves.

When Quambo was enjoying his pipe, he was never in a hurry to move, so we sat on longer than we should otherwise have done. I considered, at length, that it was time to move; when, looking up the stream, across the broad expanse I have mentioned, I caught sight of a light canoe skimming rapidly over the surface. It was approaching us; so, prompted by curiosity, we agreed to wait its arrival at the sh.o.r.e--for it did not occur to us it could possibly descend the rapids. It kept, however, in the middle of the current, and before we had got far from where we had been sitting I saw that it was about to make its way amid the tumbling waters.

"These people must be strangers, and cannot be aware of the danger they are running," I observed. "Their canoe will be destroyed, and we must do our best to save them."