The Lure Of The Mississippi Part 18

"Not yet," the old trapper admitted, "but clouds will come soon enough.

I sort of feel and smell rain in the air."

The boys laughed, "Ah, you're just fooling us," they insisted. "You can't smell rain like you smell flowers or skunks."

They ran over to Tatanka who, leaning against an old oak, was gazing down the valley where a large, high, rocky island arose like a flat-topped mountain.

"I climbed to an eagle's nest on that mountain when I was a boy," he told the lads. "The eagle was the totem of our village. I brought down a big young eagle and the other boys and I caught fish for him and he grew very tame. When he grew older and could fly well he flew away, but he often came back and sat on our tepee poles."

"Tatanka," the boys questioned, "is it going to rain to-night? Mr.

Barker says he can feel and smell rain. Do you believe he can smell rain?"

Tatanka smiled and gazed into the hazy distance. "Yes, I think it will rain," he answered, "after a while."

"Can you smell it?" the lads asked eagerly.

"May be I can smell it, may be I can feel it. White trappers and Indians can smell many things other people can't smell."

"We can smell deer and buffalo and porcupines. I can smell the river now."

"Yes, I think it will rain to-night. And may be there will be thunder and lightning."

The boys ran back to the trapper.

"Mr. Barker," they argued, "our lean-to will shed the rain if we pile on some oak brush with the leaves still on it."

"That lean-to," the old man laughed, "will leak like a sieve. In five minutes the wind will shake your ears full of big cold drops, and you wouldn't sleep a wink all night.

"You fellows can stay here overnight, but I reckon Tatanka and I will go down to the boat and set up our tent. I don't care to sit up all night in the rain. I have done that often enough."

But after a little more coaxing, the old man consented to stay another night on the point.

"Now I tell you what you can do," he suggested to his young friends.

"You gather a lot of bark, big pieces, of oak or ba.s.swood, anything you can find, and we'll put a roof on our shed."

"But the bark doesn't peel yet," Tim objected.

"No, no, I don't mean green bark. Get big pieces of bark from the old dead trees. That will do well enough for one night."

The boys soon had a stock of dead bark piled up.

"Looks as if you were going to start a tannery," remarked the trapper.

"Now go and find a lot of strings so we can tie it on."

"Where can we find strings!" the boys wanted to know.

"You go and ask Tatanka. He can find them."

Tatanka was not troubled about finding strings. Some he made by shaving the bark off young shoots of ba.s.swood. Others he found by twisting the fiber of dead Indian hemp and wild nettle into strong cords.

"The woods are full of good ropes," he murmured, "but white men don't know how to find them and make them. They can only buy them in the stores."

The boys were going to tie the bark crosswise; but the trapper would not have it that way.

"Tie them running up and down," he said. "Alternate them with rough side up and smooth side up, so they overlap, making a lot of little troughs running to the ground. Then tie them to three strong poles fastened crosswise over the lean-to.

"There! It is a rough-looking shelter. Not nearly so neat as a Chippewa bark-house, but it ought to shed the rain if the wind doesn't blow it over and if the wind doesn't come from the wrong side.

"Now get some wood, boys. Tim, you gather a lot of dry sticks for our cooking fire. Bill, you cut some green birches for the camp-fire.

Tatanka and I will cut some green oaks for back logs."

"Mr. Barker, why can't I gather dry branches for the camp-fire? There are plenty of them lying around," Tim asked eagerly.

"You may, Tim," the old man replied good-naturedly, "but you will have to sit up all night to feed the fire."

"Mr. Barker," Bill asked, "isn't oak just as good as birch for our camp-fire. I have to carry the birch a long way."

"No, Bill. Oak is no good when you can get birch. Green oak alone burns too slow. Dry oak is too hard to cut and burns too fast. Hickory and tamarack crackle and throw sparks into your blanket, so you wake up with your bed on fire.

"Birch is best for an all-night fire. It burns not too fast and not too slow, and it never shoots sparks into your bed."

Tim soon had enough sticks and dead branches to last several days, so he helped Bill to carry the billets of birch to the fireplace. They were almost five feet long and about six inches in diameter.

"They will burn pretty slow, I fear," the trapper remarked, "because the sap is in full flow and the wood feels soggy. Birch is most sappy at this time of the year."

The night started well enough. It was warm and clear and the campers sat around the fire after supper and saw the stars come out, a few bright ones first and then the host of smaller ones and very small ones. From their high camp the boys could see the larger stars reflected in the river like faint streaks of trembling light. The river continued to rise and the bottom began to appear like a series of long winding lakes separated by long islands of dark forests. The lads gazed in wonder from the river to the sky and from the sky to the river. The Great Dipper stood out clearly.

"When does it rise and when does it set?" Tim asked.

"It is always there," Tatanka answered. "It never rises and never sets, but the sun puts it out in the morning."

The boys looked questioningly at the trapper. "That is true," he confirmed Tatanka's answer, "all the stars near the Polar Star never rise and never set. You can see them in the evening as soon as it is dark enough, and they shine till the rising sun makes them invisible.

They just go round and round the Polar Star."

Many faint chirping sounds were heard as the four campers sat near the camp-fire. The green birch burnt very slowly so that Tim had to put some of his dry sticks between the logs to keep a good steady fire. At all other times green birch starts quite readily from a small fire of dry sticks and then burns with an even glow. The ends sizzle with escaping moisture but the wood does not crackle and does not throw off any sparks.

The boys wanted Tatanka to tell them what the Indians knew and believed about the stars and the moon, but the trapper urged them all to go to bed.

"Tatanka," he said, "can tell you about the moon and stars some other time. We must make an early start to-morrow. If we keep on loafing among the hills, as we have been doing, we shall not get to Vicksburg all summer.

"How far do you think it is to Vicksburg?" he asked the boys.

They did not know.

"I talked to Ryerson at the store," Barker continued. "He is an old river man. He told me it was five hundred miles from Lake Pepin to St.

Louis and a thousand miles from St. Louis to Vicksburg. It will take us two months to get there, if we average twenty-five miles a day."

"We can go faster than that, Mr. Barker," the boys protested; "we can make fifty miles a day."