Cedar Creek Part 15

Rousing himself with a shake from the numb, chill sensation which had begun to paralyze exertion, he thought that, if he could reach the little creek before mentioned, he might pursue his course, as it probably fell into their own lake at the foot of the Cedars. Keeping the pine-tops in a right line behind him, he succeeded in striking the creek, and discovering which way it flowed. After pushing his way some hours along a path of innumerable difficulties, he found himself, in the waning light, at the edge of a cypress swamp.

Almost man though he was, he could have sat down and cried. Blackest night seemed to nestle under those matted boughs, and the sullen gleams of stagnant water--the plash of a frog jumping in--the wading birds that stalked about--told him what to expect if he went farther. At the same instant a gleam of copper sunset struck across the heavens on the tops of the evergreens, and the west was not in the direction that the wanderer had imagined; he now easily calculated that he had all this time been walking _from_ home instead of towards it.

Strange to say, a ray of hope was brought upon that sunbeam, even coupled with the conviction that he had been hitherto so wofully astray.

To-morrow might be bright (and to all the wanderers in this world the anchor is to-morrow); he would be able to guide his course by the sun, and would come all right. He resolved to spend the night in a tree near his fire for fear of wild beasts, and selected a fine branching cedar for his dormitory. Laying his gun securely in one of the forks, and coiling himself up as snugly as possible, where four boughs radiated from the trunk, about twenty feet from the ground, he settled himself to sleep as in an arm-chair, with the great hushing silence of the forest around him. Unusual as his circ.u.mstances were, he was soon wrapt in a dreamless slumber.

Dull and slow dawned the November morning among the trees; broad daylight on their tops, when but a twilight reached the earth, sixty or eighty feet below. Arthur found himself rather stiff and chill after his unwonted night's lodging; he tried to gather up the brands of the evening's fire, which had sunk hours before into grey ashes, that he might at least warm himself before proceeding farther. Simultaneously with its kindling appeared the sun--oh, welcome sight! and shot a golden arrow aslant a line of trees. Then was revealed to Arthur the mossy secret of wood-craft, that the north side bears a covering withheld from the south; for he perceived that, viewed in the aggregate, the partial greenery on the various barks was very distinct. Examining individual trunks would not show this; but looking at a ma.s.s, the fact was evident.

Now he knew the points of the compa.s.s; but of what practical avail was his knowledge? Whether he had wandered from the shanty to the north, south, east, or west, was only conjecture. How could that creek have led him astray? He must have crossed the rising ground separating two watersheds--that sloping towards his own lake and towards some other.

There flowed the little stream noiselessly, sucked into the swampy cypress grove: of course it got out somewhere at the other side; but as to following it any farther into the dismal tangled recesses, with only a chance of emergence in a right direction, he felt disinclined to try.

No breakfast for him but a drink of water; though with carnivorous eyes he saw the pretty speckled trout glide through the brown pool where he dipped his hand; and he crossed the creek over a fallen tree, ascending to the eastward. He could not be insensible to the beauty of nature this morning--to the majesty of the mighty forest, standing in still solemnity over the face of the earth. Magnificent repose! The world seemed not yet wakened; the air was motionless as crystal; the infinitely coloured foliage clung to maples and aspens--tattered relics of the royal raiment of summer. The olden awe overshadowed Arthur's heart; his Creator's presence permeated these sublime works of Deity. Alone in the untrodden woods, his soul recognised its G.o.d; and a certain degree of freedom from anxiety was the result. Personal effort was not his sole dependence, since he had felt that G.o.d was present, and powerful.

Still he kept on to the south-east, hoping at last to strike some of the inhabited townships; and the unvarying solidity of forest was well-nigh disheartening him, when he saw, after several miles' walking, the distinctly defined imprint of a man's foot on some clayey soil near a clump of chestnut trees. Yes, there could be no mistake: some person had pa.s.sed not long since; and though the tracks led away considerably from the south-easterly direction he had hitherto kept, he turned, without hesitation to follow them, and proceeded as rapidly as possible, in hope of overtaking the solitary pedestrian, whoever he might be. He shouted aloud, he sang some staves of various familiar old songs; but no response from other human voice came, anxiously as he listened for such echo. But the footmarks were before his eyes as tangible evidence; he had got very sharp by this time at detecting the pressure of a heel on the dead leaves, or the displacement of a plant by quick steps. The tracks must lead to something. Certainly; they led to a creek.

Impossible! It cannot be that he has followed his own footprints of yesterday! Planting his boot firmly on the bank beside the other mark, he compared the twain. A glance was enough; the impressions were identical.

The bewildered feeling of one in a labyrinth recurred. He saw nothing better for it than to return to the point whence he had diverged to follow the tracks. He now remembered having made this detour the previous day to avoid cutting his way through a dense underwood on the bank of the stream.

Nigh an hour had been lost by this delusive retracing of footmarks. He thought that if he climbed the highest tree he could find, he would be able to get a bird's-eye view of the country round. Oh that he might behold some islet of clearing amid the ocean of woods!

To reach the branches of any of the largest trees was the difficulty; for the smooth shaft of a ma.s.sive marble pillar would be as easily climbed as the trunk of some arboreal giants here, rising fifty feet clear of boughs. However, by swinging from the smaller trees he accomplished his object, and saw beneath him on all sides the vast continuity of forest.

Desert could not be lonelier nor more monotonous. No glimmer even of distant lake on the horizon; no brown spots of clearing; no variety, save the autumn coat of many colours, contrasted with sombre patches of pine. Stay--was not that a faint haze of smoke yonder? a light bluish mist floating over a particular spot, hardly moving in the still air.

Arthur carefully noted the direction, and came down from his observatory on the run. He was confident there must be a trapper's fire, or a camp, or some other traces of humanity where that thin haze hung. He could not be baulked this time. Hope, which is verily a beauteous hydra in the young breast, revived again in strength. If he only had somewhat to eat, he wouldn't mind the long tramp before him. Beech-mast rather increased than appeased his hunger; and nothing came in view that could be shot.

He had not walked far, when a sharp, wild cry, as of some small animal in pain, struck his ear. Pushing away the brush at the left, he saw the cause--a little dark furry creature hanging to a sapling, as it seemed; and at his appearance the struggles to escape were redoubled, and the weakly cries of fear became more piteous. Arthur perceived that to the top of the sapling was fastened a steel snaptrap, clasping a forepaw in its cruel teeth, and that each convulsive effort to get free only set the animal dangling in the air, as a trout is played from a rod. Hopelessly snared, indeed, was the poor marten; he had not even the resource of parting with his paw, which, had he had any 'purchase' to strive against, would probably have been his choice. By what blandishments of bait he had ever been seduced into his present melancholy position was out of Arthur's power to imagine.

But now at least it was beyond all doubt that men were near. Raising his eyes from inspection of the marten-trap, he saw on a tree close by a freshly-cut blaze. Some rods farther on he could see another. Now a question arose, which way should he follow the line?--one end was probably in pathless forest. He concluded to take that direction which suited the smoke he had seen.

He wondered what blazed lino this was--whether marking the side lots of a concession, or a hunter's private road through the woods. Presently, at a little distance, the sight of a man's figure stooping almost made his heart leap into his mouth. How lonely he had been, how almost desperate at times, he had not fully known till this his deliverance.

Oh, that blessed human form! be he the rudest trapper or Indian, Arthur could have embraced him. Much more when, the face being lifted from examining the trap, and fixing its eyes with a very astonished stare on the approaching figure, Arthur recognised the shrewd features of Peter Logan.

CHAPTER XVII.

BACK TO CEDAR CREEK.

'I declar, if you hain't 'most skeered me!' was Peter's exclamation.

'For sartin I never seed a ghost, but it looked like enough this time.

Now, do tell what brought you so far from hum? Thirteen mile, if it's a rod. You ain't lookin' partic'ler spry, anyhow. Now, Arthur, doen't, poor lad, doen't.'

For he could not speak during a minute or two; his arm pressed heavily on the backwoodsman's st.u.r.dy shoulder, in the effort to steady the strong trembling that shook him from head to foot like a spasm of ague.

'Lost in the bush, you war? Well, that ain't agreeable nohow exactly;'

and Peter betook himself to a fumbling in his capacious pocket for a tin flask, containing some reviving fluid. 'Here, take a pull--this'll fix you all right. Warn't it wonderful that I went my road of traps when I did, instead of early this mornin'. There's a providence in that, for sartin.'

Deep in Arthur's heart he acknowledged the same truth gratefully.

'You've got a plaguy touch of ague, likely,' added Peter considerately, willing to shift the responsibility of that trembling from the mind to the body. 'Campin' out is chill enough these nights. I han't much furder to go to the end of my blaze, and then I'll be back with you. So will you wait or come along?'

Arthur had too lately found human company to be willing to relinquish it, even with certainty of its return; he dreaded nothing so much as the same solitude whence he had just emerged; therefore he followed Peter, who over his shoulder carried a bag containing various bodies of minks, fishers, and other furry animals, snared in his traps, and subsequently knocked on the head by his tough service-rod.

That night Arthur found comfortable shelter in Peter's hut, and was initiated into many mysteries of a trapper's life by him and his half-Indian a.s.sistant. Next morning they guided him as far as a surveyor's post, on which was legibly written the names of four townships, which was the signal for the separation of the party. Arthur turned his face towards civilisation, along a blazed boundary line. The others plunged deeper into the woods, walking in the unsociable Indian file.

The blazed line went on fairly enough for some miles, over hillocks of hardwood, and across marshes of dank evergreens, where logs had been laid lengthwise for dry footing. At last Arthur thought he must be drawing near to a clearing, for light appeared through the dense veil of trees before him, as if some extensive break to the vast continuity of forest occurred beyond. Soon he stood on its verge. Ay, surely a clearing; but no human hands had been at work.

Hundreds of huge trees lay strewn about, as if they had been wrenched off their stumps by some irresistible power seizing the branched heads and hurling them to the earth. Torn up by the ma.s.sy roots, or twisted round as you would try to break an obstinately tough withe, for many score of acres the wildest confusion of prostrate maples and elms and pines, heaped upon one another, locked in death-embraces, quite obliterated any track, and blocked across the country. Arthur had come upon what French Canadians call a 'renverse' effected by some partial whirlwind during the preceding summer.

Such tornadoes often crash a road of destruction through the bush for miles; a path narrow in comparison with its length, and reminding the traveller of the explosive fury of some vast projectile. The track of one has been observable for more than forty miles right through the heart of uninhabited forest.

To cross the stupendous barrier seemed impossible to Arthur. There was a tangled chaos of interlaced and withering boughs and trunks; such a _chevaux de frise_ might stop a regiment until some slow sap cut a path through, and he was without axe, or even a large knife. He must work his way round; and yet he was most unwilling to part company with the blaze.

While hesitating, and rather ruefully contemplating the obstacle, a sound at a considerable distance struck his ear. It was--oh, joy!--the blows of an axe. Instantly he went in the direction. When near enough to be heard, he shouted. An answering hail came from the other side of the windfall; but presently he saw that an attempt had been made to log up the fallen timber in heaps, and, making his way through the blackened stumps of extinct fires, he reached the spot where two rough-looking men were at work with handspikes and axes.

They had built a little hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking possession of this strip of bush without anybody's leave, and determined to hold their own against all comers. An apparently well-used rifle lying against a log close by gave this speech considerable emphasis.

Arthur wanted nothing more from them than to be put on the surveyor's line again; and, when directed to the blaze, speedily left the sound of their axes far behind. In half an hour he reached other traces of mankind--a regularly chopped road, where the trees had been felled for the proper width, and only here and there an obstinate trunk had come down wrongly, and lay right across, to be climbed over or crept under according to the wayfarer's taste. In marshy spots he was treated to strips of corduroy; for the settled parts of the country were near.

'Holloa! Uncle Zack, is that you?'

The person addressed stood in a snake-fenced field, superintending a couple of labourers. He turned round at the hail, and stared as if he did not believe his senses.

'Wal, I guess I warn't never skeered in my life before. They're all out lookin' for you--Nim, an' the whole "Corner" bodily. Your brother's distracted ravin' mad this two days huntin' the bush; but I told him you'd be sartin sure to turn up somehow. Now, whar are you runnin' so fast? There ain't n.o.body to hum, an' we 'greed to fire the rifles as a signal whoever fust got tidins of you. Three shots arter another,' as young Wynn fired in the air. 'Come, quick as wink, they'll be listenin'.'

'Robert will know the report,' observed Arthur, with a smile, to think of his pleasure in the recognition, 'if he's near enough.'

'We'll make tracks for the "Corner," I guess,' said Uncle Zack with alacrity; 'that war the meetin'-place, an' you must be powerful hungry.

I'd ha' been to sarch for you to-day, only them Irish fellers at the clearin' wanted lookin' arter precious bad.' ('Lucky I got in them kegs o' whisky; he'll have to stand treat for the neighbours,' thought 'cute Uncle Zack in a sort of mental parenthesis.) 'But now do tell! you must ha' gone a terrible big round, I guess. They took the Indjin out to foller your trail; them savages has noses an' eyes like hounds. We'll fire my rifle from the store; it's bigger than yourn.'

His abstraction of mind during Arthur's narrative was owing to a judicious maturing of certain plans for exacting the greatest amount of profit from the occurrence; but he contrived to interlard his listening with such appropriate interjections as, 'Now do tell! How you talk! Wal, I kinder like to know!' mentally watering his whisky the while.

Mrs. Zack, also scenting the prey afar off, was polite as that lady could be to good customers only. Arthur's impatience for the arrival of the parties from the bush hardly permitted him to do more than taste the meal she provided. Within doors he could not stay, though weary enough to want rest. The few log-cabins of the 'Corner' looked more drowsily quiet than usual; the sawmill was silent. Zack was turning over some soiled and scribbled ledgers on his counter. Suddenly a shot in the woods quite near: a detachment of the searchers had arrived.

That the rejoicing would take its usual form, an emptying of his spirit-kegs, Zack Bunting had never doubted. But the second word to the bargain, Mr. Wynn's promise to stand treat, had not been given, though it was a mere matter of form, Zack thought. Robert spoke to the neighbours, and thanked them collectively for their exertions in a most cordial manner on behalf of himself and his brother, and was turning to go home, when the Yankee storekeeper touched his elbow.

''Tain't the usual doins to let 'em away dry,' suggested he, with a meaning smile. ''Spose you stand treat now; 'twill fix the business handsome.'

That keen snaky eye of his could easily read the momentary struggle in Robert's mind between the desire not to appear singular and unfriendly, and the dislike to encouraging that whisky drinking which is the bane of working men everywhere, but most especially in the colonies. Sam Holt watched for his decision. Perhaps the knowledge of what that calm strong nature by his side would do helped to confirm Robert's wavering into bold action.

'Certainly not,' he said loudly, that all might hear. 'I'll not give any whisky on any account. It ruins nine-tenths of the people. I'm quite willing to reward those who have kindly given time and trouble to help me, but it shall not be in that way.'

Zack's smoke-dried complexion became whitewashed with disappointment.

A day or two afterwards, Zack's son, Nimrod, made his appearance at the Wynns' shanty.