Rolf in the Woods Part 33

"Fight."

"As soldier?"

"No! scout."

"They may not want us."

"Always want scouts," replied the Indian.

"It seems to me I ought to start training now."

"You have been training."

"How is that?"

"A scout is everything that an army is, but it's all in one man. An' he don't have to keep step."

"I see, I see," replied Rolf, and he realized that a scout is merely a trained hunter who is compelled by war to hunt his country's foes instead of the beasts of the woods.

"See that?" said the Indian, and he pointed to a buck that was nosing for cranberries in the open expanse across the river where it left the lake. "Now, I show you scouting." He glanced at the smoke from the fire, found it right for his plan, and said: "See! I take my bow. No cover, yet I will come close and kill that deer."

Then began a performance that was new to Rolf, and showed that the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head, and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door, and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and columnar neck to look around. There was no cover but creeping herbage. Rolf suspected that the Indian would decoy the buck by some whistle or challenge, for the thickness of its neck showed the deer to be in fighting humour.

Flat on his breast the Indian lay. His knees and elbow seemed to develop centipedic power; his head was a mere clump of growing stuff. He snaked his way quietly for twenty-five yards, then came to the open, sloping sh.o.r.e, with the river forty yards wide of level shining ice, all in plain view of the deer; how was this to be covered?

There is a well-known peculiarity of the white tail that the Indian was counting on; when its head is down grazing, even though not hidden, the deer does not see distant objects; before the head is raised, its tail is raised or shaken. Quonab knew that if he could keep the tail in view, he could avoid being viewed by the head. In a word, only an ill-timed movement or a whiff could betray him.

The open ice was, of course, a hard test, and the hunter might have failed, but that his long form looked like one of the logs that were lying about half stranded or frozen in the stream.

Watching ever the alert head and tail, he timed his approach, working hard and moving East when the head was down; but when warned by a tail-jerk he turned to a log nor moved a muscle. Once the ice was crossed, the danger of being seen was less, but of being smelt was greater, for the deer was moving about, and Quonab watched the smoke from the cabin for knowledge of the wind. So he came within fifty yards, and the buck, still sniffing along and eagerly champing the few red cranberries it found above the frozen moss, was working toward a somewhat higher cover. The herbage was now fully eighteen inches high, and Quonab moved a little faster. The buck found a large patch of berries under a tussock and dropped on its knees to pick them out, while Quonab saw the chance and gained ten yards before the tail gave warning.

After so long a feeding-spell, the buck took an extra long lookout, and then walked toward the timber, whereby the Indian lost all he had gained. But the browser's eye was drawn by a shining bunch of red, then another; and now the buck swung until there was danger of betrayal by the wind; then down went its head and Quonab retreated ten yards to keep the windward. Once the buck raised its muzzle and sniffed with flaring nostrils, as though its ancient friend had brought a warning. But soon he seemed rea.s.sured, for the landscape showed no foe, and nosed back and forth, while Quonab regained the yards he had lost. The buck worked now to the taller cover, and again a tempting bunch of berries under a low, dense bush caused it to kneel for farther under-reaching. Quonab glided swiftly forward, reached the twenty-five-yard limit, rose to one knee, bent the stark cedar bow. Rolf saw the buck bound in air, then make for the wood with great, high leaps; the dash of disappointment was on him, but Quonab stood erect, with right hand raised, and shouted:

"Ho--ho."

He knew that those bounds were unnecessarily high, and before the woods had swallowed up the buck, it fell--rose--and fell again, to rise not.

The arrow had pierced its heart.

Then Rolf rushed up with kindled eye and exultant pride to slap his friend on the back, and exclaim:

"I never thought it possible; the greatest feat in hunting I ever saw; you are a wonder!"

To which the Indian softly replied, as he smiled:

"Ho! it was so I got eleven British sentries in the war. They gave me a medal with Washington's head."

"They did! how is it I never heard of it? Where is it?"

The Indian's face darkened. "I threw it after the ship that stole my Gamowini."

Chapter 67. Rolf Meets a Canuck

The winter might have been considered eventful, had not so many of the events been repet.i.tions of former experience. But there were several that by their newness deserve a place on these pages, as they did in Rolf's memory.

One of them happened soon after the first sharp frost. It had been an autumn of little rain, so that many ponds had dried up, with the result that hundreds of muskrats were forced out to seek more habitable quarters. The first time Rolf saw one of these stranded mariners on its overland journey, he gave heedless chase. At first it made awkward haste to escape; then a second muskrat was discovered just ahead, and a third.

This added to Rolf's interest. In a few bounds he was among them, but it was to get a surprise. Finding themselves overtaken, the muskrats turned in desperation and attacked the common enemy with courage and fury. Rolf leaped over the first, but the second sprang, caught him by the slack of the trouser leg, and hung on. The third flung itself on his foot and drove its sharp teeth through the moccasin. Quickly the first rallied and sprang on his other leg with all the force of its puny paws, and powerful jaws.

Meanwhile Quonab was laughing aloud and holding back Skook.u.m, who, breathing fire and slaughter, was mad to be in the fight.

"Ho! a good fight! good musquas! Ho, Skook.u.m, you must not always take care of him, or he will not learn to go alone.

"Ugh, good!" as the third muskrat gripped Rolf by the calf.

There could be but one finish, and that not long delayed. A well-placed kick on one, the second swung by the tail, the third crushed under his heel, and the affair ended. Rolf had three muskrats and five cuts.

Quonab had much joy and Skook.u.m a sense of lost opportunity.

"This we should paint on the wigwam," said Quonab. "Three great warriors attacked one Sagamore. They were very brave, but he was Nibowaka and very strong; he struck them down as the Thunderbird, Hurakan, strikes the dead pines the fire has left on the hilltop against the sky. Now shall you eat their hearts, for they were brave. My father told me a fighting muskrat's heart is great medicine; for he seeks peace while it is possible, then he turns and fights without fear."

A few days later, they sighted a fox. In order to have a joke on Skook.u.m, they put him on its track, and away he went, letting off his joy-whoops at every jump. The men sat down to wait, knowing full well that after an hour Skook.u.m would come back with a long tongue and an air of depression. But they were favoured with an unexpected view of the chase. It showed a fox bounding over the snow, and not twenty yards behind was their energetic four-legged colleague.

And, still more unexpected, the fox was overtaken in the next thicket, shaken to limpness, and dragged to be dropped at Quonab's feet.

This glorious victory by Skook.u.m was less surprising, when a closer examination showed that the fox had been in a bad way. Through some sad, sudden indiscretion, he had tackled a porcupine and paid the penalty.

His mouth, jaws and face, neck and legs, were bristling with quills. He was sick and emaciated. He could not have lasted many days longer, and Skook.u.m's summary lynching was a blessing in disguise.

The trappers' usual routine was varied by a more important happening.

One day of deep snow in January, when they were running the northern line on Racquet River, they camped for the night at their shelter cabin, and were somewhat surprised at dusk to hear a loud challenge from Skook.u.m replied to by a human voice, and a short man with black whiskers appeared. He raised one hand in token of friendliness and was invited to come in.

He was a French Canadian from La Colle Mills. He had trapped here for some years. The almost certainty of war between Canada and the States had kept his usual companions away. So he had trapped alone, always a dangerous business, and had gathered a lot of good fur, but had fallen on the ice and hurt himself inwardly, so that he had no strength. He could tramp out on snowshoes, but could not carry his pack of furs. He had long known that he had neighbours on the south; the camp fire smoke proved that, and he had come now to offer all his furs for sale.

Quonab shook his head, but Rolf said, "We'll come over and see them."

A two-hours' tramp in the morning brought them to the Frenchman's cabin.

He opened out his furs; several otter, many sable, some lynx, over thirty beaver--the whole lot for two hundred dollars. At Lyons Falls they were worth double that.

Rolf saw a chance for a bargain. He whispered, "We can double our money on it, Quonab. What do ye say?"

The reply was simply, "Ugh! you are Nibowaka."

"We'll take your offer, if we can fix it up about payment, for I have no money with me and barely two hundred dollars at the cabin."

"You half tabac and grosairs?"

"Yes, plenty."

"You can go 'get 'em? Si?"

Rolf paused, looked down, then straight at the Frenchman.