The Tent Dwellers Part 6

Chapter Twelve

Along the wet, blurred sh.o.r.e we cruised, the mist getting thicker and more like rain. Here and there we entered some little bay or nook that from a distance looked as if it might be an outlet. Eventually we lost all direction and simply investigated at random wherever any appearance seemed inviting. Once we went up a long slough and were almost ready to fire the signal shots when we discovered our mistake. It seemed a narrow escape from the humiliation of giving a false alarm. What had become of the others we did not know. Evidently the lake was a big one and they might be miles away. Eddie had the only compa.s.s, though this would seem to be of no special advantage.

At last, just before us, the sh.o.r.e parted--a definite, wide parting it was, that when we pushed into it did not close and come to nothing, but kept on and on, opening out ahead. We went a good way in, to make sure.

The water seemed very still, but then we remembered the flatness of the country. Undoubtedly this was the outlet, and we had discovered it. It was only natural that we should feel a certain elation in our having had the good fortune--the instinct, as it were--to proceed aright. I lifted my gun and it was with a sort of triumphant flourish that I fired the two signal shots.

It may be that the reader will not fully understand the importance of finding a little thing like the outlet of a lake on a wet, disagreeable day when the other fellows are looking for it, too; and here, to-day, far away from that northern desolation, it does not seem even to me a very great affair whether our canoe or Eddie's made the discovery. But for some reason it counted a lot then, and I suppose Del and I were unduly elated over our success. It was just as well that we were, for our period of joy was brief. In the very instant while my finger was still touching the trigger, we heard come soggily through the mist, from far down the chill, gray water, one shot and then another.

I looked at Del and he at me.

"They've found something, too," I said. "Do you suppose there are two outlets? Anyhow, here goes," and I fired again our two shots of discovery, and a little later two more so that there might be no mistake in our manifest. I was not content, you see, with the possibility of being considered just an ordinary a.s.s, I must establish proof beyond question of a supreme idiocy in the matter of woodcraft. That is my way in many things. I know, for I have done it often. I shall keep on doing it, I suppose, until the moment when I am permitted to say, "I die innocent."

"They only think they have found something," I said to Del now. "It's probably the long slough we found a while ago. They'll be up here quick enough," and I fired yet two more shots, to rub it in.

But now two more shots came also from Eddie, and again two more. By this time we had pushed several hundred yards farther into the opening, and there was no doubt but that it was a genuine river. I was growing every moment more elated with our triumph over the others and in thinking how we would ride them down when they finally had to abandon their lead and follow ours, when all at once Del, who had been looking over the side of the canoe grew grave and stopped paddling.

"There seems to be a little current here," he pointing down to the gra.s.s which showed plainly now in the clear water, "yes--there--is--a current," he went on very slowly, his voice becoming more dismal at every word, "but it's going the wrong way!"

I looked down intently. Sure enough, the gra.s.s on the bottom pointed back toward the lake.

"Then it isn't the Shelburne, after all," I said, "but another river we've discovered."

Del looked at me pathetically.

"It's the Shelburne, all right," he nodded, and there was deep suffering in his tones, "oh, yes, it's the Shelburne--only it happens to be the upper end--the place where we came in. That rock is where you stopped to make a few casts."

No canoe ever got out of the upper Shelburne River quicker than ours.

Those first old voyageurs of that waste region never made better time down Irving Lake. Only, now and then, I fired some more to announce our coming, and to prepare for the lie we meant to establish that we only had been replying to their shots all along and not announcing anything new and important of our own.

But it was no use. We had guilt written on our features, and we never had been taught to lie convincingly. In fact it was wasted effort from the start. The other canoe had been near enough when we entered the trap to see us go in, and even then had located the true opening, which was no great distance away. They jeered us to silence and they rode us down.

They carefully drew our attention to the old log dam in proof that this was the real outlet; they pointed to the rapid outpouring current for it was a swift boiling stream here--and asked us if we could tell which way it was flowing. For a time our disgrace was both active and complete.

Then came a diversion. Real rain--the usual night downpour--set in, and there was a scramble to get the tents up and our goods under cover.

Yet the abuse had told on me. One of my eyes--the last to yield to the whisky treatment, began to throb a good deal--and I dragged off my wet clothes, got on a dry garment (the only thing I had left by this time that was dry) and worked my way laboriously, section by section, into my sleeping bag, after which Eddie was sorry for me--as I knew he would be--and brought me a cup of tea and some toast and put a nice piece of chocolate into my mouth and sang me a song. It had been a pretty strenuous day, and I had been bruised and cold and wet and scratched and humiliated. But the tea and toast put me in a forgiving spirit, and the chocolate was good, and Eddie can sing. I was dry, too, and reasonably warm. And the rain hissing into the campfire at the door had a soothing sound.

Chapter Thirteen

_Now take the advice that I do not need--_ _That I do not heed, alway:_ _For there's many a fool can make a rule_ _Which only the wise obey._

Chapter Thirteen

As usual, the clouds had emptied themselves by morning. The sky was still dull and threatening, and from the tent door the water of the lake was gray. But the mist had gone, and the islands came out green and beautiful. The conditions made it possible to get some clothing decently smoked and scorched, which is the nearest approach to dryness one is ever likely to achieve in the woods in a rainy season.

I may say here that the time will come--and all too soon, in a period of rain--when you will reach your last dry suit of underwear--and get it wet. Then have a care. Be content to stay in a safe, dry spot, if you can find one--you will have to go to bed, of course, to do it until something is dry--that is, pretty dry. To change from one wet suit to another only a little less so is conducive neither to comfort nor to a peaceful old age. Above all, do not put on your night garment, or garments, for underwear, for they will get wet, too; then your condition will be desperate.

I submit the above as good advice. I know it is good advice for I did not follow it. I have never followed good advice--I have only given it.

At the end of several nights of rain and moist days, I had nothing really dry but my nightshirt and one slipper and I think Eddie's condition was not so far removed. What we did was to pick out the least damp of our things and smoke and scorch them on a pole over the campfire until they had a sort of a half-done look, like bread toasted over a gas jet; then suddenly we would seize them and put them on hot and go around steaming, and smelling of leaf smoke and burnt dry goods--these odors blended with the fragrance of camphor, tar and pennyroyal, with which we were presently saturated in every pore. For though it was said to be too late for black flies and too early for mosquitoes, the rear guard of the one and the advance guard of the other combined to furnish us with a good deal of special occupation. The most devoted follower of the Prophet never anointed himself oftener than we did, and of course this continuous oily application made it impossible to wash very perfectly; besides, it seemed a waste to wash off the precious protection when to do so meant only another immediate and more thorough treatment.

I will dwell for a moment on this matter of washing. Fishing and camping, though fairly clean recreations, will be found not altogether free from soiling and grimy tendencies, and when one does not or cannot thoroughly remove the evidences several times a day, they begin to tell on his general appearance. Gradually our hands lost everything original except their shape. Then I found that to shave took off a good deal of valuable ointment each time, and I approved of Eddie's ideas in this direction to the extent of following his example. I believe, though, that I washed myself longer than he did--that is, at stated intervals.

Of course we never gave up the habit altogether. It would break out sporadically and at unexpected moments, but I do not recall that these lapses ever became dangerous or offensive. My recollection is that Eddie gave up washing as a mania, that morning at the foot of Irving Lake and that I held out until the next sunrise. Or it may have been only until that evening--it does not matter. Washing is a good deal a question of pride, anyway, and pride did not count any more. Even self-respect had lost its charm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If one's things are well smoked and scorched and scalded and put on hot in the morning----"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We never failed to hide the whisky."]

In the matter of clothing, however, I wish to record that I never did put on my nightdress for an undergarment. I was tempted to do so, daily, but down within me a still small voice urged the rashness of such a deed and each night I was thankful for that caution. If one's things are well smoked and scorched and scalded and put on hot in the morning, he can forget presently that they are not also dry, and there is a chance that they may become so before night; but to face the prospect of getting into a wet garment to sleep, that would have a tendency to destroy the rare charm and flavor of camp life. In time I clung to my dry nightshirt as to a life-belt. I wrapped it up mornings as a jewel, buried it deep in the bottom of my bag, and I locked the bag. Not that Eddie did not have one of his own--it may be that he had a variety of such things--and as for the guides, I have a notion that they prefer wet clothes. But though this was a wild country, where it was unlikely that we should meet any living soul, there was always the possibility of a stray prospector or a hunter, and a dry garment in a wet time is a temptation which should not be put in any man's way. Neither that nor the liquor supply. When we left our camp--as we did, often--our guns, our tackle, even our purses and watches, were likely to be scattered about in plain view; but we never failed to hide the whisky. Whisky is fair loot, and the woodsman who would scorn to steal even a dry shirt would carry off whisky and revel in his shame.

There were quant.i.ties of trout in the lower Shelburne, and in a pool just below the camp, next morning, Eddie and I took a dozen or more--enough for breakfast and to spare--in a very few minutes. They were lively fish--rather light in color, but beautifully marked and small enough to be sweet and tender, that is, not much over a half-pound weight. In fact, by this time we were beginning to have a weakness for the smaller fish. The pound-and-upward trout, the most plentiful size, thus far, were likely to be rather dry and none too tender. When we needed a food supply, the under-sized fish were more welcome, and when, as happened only too rarely, we took one of the old-fashioned New England speckled beauty dimensions--that is to say, a trout of from seven to nine inches long and of a few ounces weight--it was welcomed with real joy. Big fish are a satisfaction at the end of a line and in the landing net, but when one really enters upon a trout diet--when at last it becomes necessary to serve them in six or seven different ways to make them go down--the demand for the smallest fish obtainable is pretty certain to develop, while the big ones are promptly returned with good wishes and G.o.d-speed to their native element.

For of course no true sportsman ever keeps any trout he cannot use. Only the "fish-hog" does that. A trout caught on a fly is seldom injured, and if returned immediately to the water will dart away, all the happier, it may be, for his recent tug-of-war. He suffers little or no pain in the tough cartilages about his mouth and gills (a fact I have demonstrated by hooking the same fish twice, both marks plainly showing on him when taken) and the new kind of exercise and experience he gets at the end of the line, and his momentary a.s.sociation with human beings, const.i.tute for him a valuable a.s.set, perhaps to be retailed in the form of reminiscence throughout old age. But to fling him into a canoe, to gasp and die and be thrown away, that is a different matter. That is a crime worse than stealing a man's lunch or his last dry undershirt, or even his whisky.

In the first place, kill your trout the moment you take him out of the water--that is, if you mean to eat him. If he is too big, or if you already have enough, put him back with all expedition and let him swim away. Even if he does warn the other trout and spoil the fishing in that pool, there are more pools, and then it is likely you have fished enough in that one, anyway. Come back next year and have another battle with him. He will be bigger and know better what to do then. Perhaps it will be his turn to win.

In the matter of killing a fish there are several ways to do it. Some might prefer to set him up on the bank and shoot at him. Another way would be to brain him with an ax. The guides have a way of breaking a trout's neck by a skillful movement which I never could duplicate. My own method is to sever the vertebrae just back of the ears--gills, I mean--with the point of a sharp knife. It is quick and effective.

I don't know why I am running on with digression and advice this way.

Perhaps because about this period I had had enough experience to feel capable of giving advice. A little experience breeds a lot of advice. I knew a man once----[3]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The publisher wished me to go on with the story at this point. The man referred to above got his experience in Wall Street. He got enough in half a day to keep him in advice for forty-seven years.

Chapter Fourteen

_Oh, never a voice to answer here,_ _And never a face to see--_ _Mid chill and damp we build our camp_ _Under the hemlock tree._

Chapter Fourteen

In spite of the rains the waters of the Shelburne were too low at this point to descend in the canoes. The pools were pretty small affairs and the rapids long, shallow and very ragged. It is good sport to run rapids in a canoe when there is plenty of swift water and a fair percentage of danger. But these were dangerous only to the canoes, which in many places would not even float, loaded as we were. It became evident that the guides would have to wade and drag, with here and there a carry, to get the boats down to deeper water--provided always there _was_ deeper water, which we did not doubt.