The Wilderness Castaways Part 29

Ahmik was growing more talkative upon acquaintance, and drawing out of the natural reticence of his race with strangers, as is the way of Indians when they learn to know and like one.

It was a hard afternoon for Paul, and he had to summon all his grit and fort.i.tude to keep going without complaint until the night halt was finally made, but he did his share of the camp work, nevertheless, with a will, and when the tent was pitched and wood cut he sat down more weary than he had ever been in his life.

Amesbury and Ahmik traveled in true Indian fashion when Indians make flying trips without their families. They had neither tent nor tent stove to protect them. The experienced woodsman can protect himself, even in sub-Arctic regions, from the severest storm and cold, so long as he has an axe. Sometimes he resorts to temporary shelters, with fires, sometimes to burrows in snowdrifts, or to such other methods as the particular conditions which he has to face suggest or demand.

Paul and Dan, however, had their tent, tent stove and other paraphernalia. The tent they pitched upon the snow, stretching it, by means of the ridge rope, between two convenient trees. When it was finally in place Dan banked snow well up upon all sides save the opening used for an entrance.

While Dan was thus engaged Paul broke spruce boughs for a floor covering and bed, Ahmik cut wood for the stove, and Amesbury unpacked the outfit and set the stove in place upon two green log b.u.t.ts three feet long and six inches thick. This he did that the stove might not sink into the snow when a fire was lighted and the snow under the stove began to melt.

The telescope pipe in place, Amesbury put a handful of birch bark in the stove, broke some small, dry twigs upon it, lighted the bark, as it blazed filled the stove with some of Ahmik's neatly split wood, and in five minutes the interior of the tent was comfortably warm.

Paul spread the tarpaulin upon the boughs which he had arranged, stowed their camp things neatly around the edge of the interior, and night camp was ready. Though rather crowded, the tent offered sufficient accommodation for the four.

A candle was lighted, and Amesbury installed himself as cook. A kettle of ice was placed upon the stove to melt and boil for tea. A frying pan filled with thick slices of salt pork was presently sizzling on the stove. Then he added some salt and baking powder to a pan of flour, mixed them thoroughly, and poured enough water from the kettle of melting ice to make a dough.

The pork, which had now cooked sufficiently, was taken from the pan and placed upon a tin dish, and the dough, stretched into thin cakes large enough to fill the circ.u.mference of the pan, was fried, one at a time, in the bubbling pork grease that remained. In the meantime tea had been made.

"All ready. Fall to," announced Amesbury.

"I feels I'm ready for un," said Dan.

"I can eat two meals," declared Paul.

"I'm interested to see what the day's work did for you chaps. Now if you can't eat, Ahmik and I will feel that we didn't walk you fast enough today, and we'll have to do better tomorrow, eh, Ahmik?"

Amesbury's eyes twinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Ugh! Big walk tomorrow. Very far. Very fast," and Ahmik grinned.

"Goodness!" exclaimed Paul. "If we have to walk any farther or faster tomorrow than we did today, I'll just collapse. I'm so stiff now I can hardly move."

"That's always the case for a day or two when a fellow starts out for the first time on snowshoes and does a full day's work. It won't last long, but we'll take it a little slower tomorrow, to let you get hardened to it," Amesbury consoled.

When they stopped to boil the kettle the following day Paul was scarcely able to lift his feet from the snow. Sharp pains in the calves of his legs and in his hips and groins were excruciating, and he sat down upon his toboggan very thankful for the opportunity to rest.

"How is it? Pretty tired?" asked Amesbury, good-naturedly.

"A little stiff--and tired," answered Paul, whose pride would not permit him to admit how hard it was for him to keep up.

"We'll take a little easier gait this afternoon. I didn't realize we were hitting it off so hard as we were this morning."

"Thank you." Paul wished to say "Don't go slow on my account," but he realized how utterly impossible it would be for him to keep the more rapid pace.

When luncheon was disposed of and they again fell into line, the pain was so intense that he could scarcely restrain from crying out. But he kept going, and saying to himself:

"I won't be a quitter. I _won't_ be a quitter." He began to lag wofully, however, in spite of his determination and grit, and the slower pace which Amesbury had set. Thus they traveled silently on for nearly an hour, when all at once Amesbury stopped, held up his hand as a signal to the others to halt and remain quiet. Dropping his toboggan rope he stole stealthily forward and was quickly lost to view.

Presently a rifle shot rang out, and immediately another. A moment later Amesbury strode back for his toboggan, where the others were awaiting him, humming as he came:

"'His body will make a nice little stew, And his giblets will make me a little pie, too.'"

"Come along, fellows," he called. "Two caribou the reward of vigilance. We'll skin 'em."

Just within the woods, at the edge of an open, wind-swept marsh, they left their toboggans, and a hundred yards beyond lay the carca.s.ses of the two caribou Amesbury had killed.

"There was a band of a dozen," he explained, as they walked out to the game. "I thought we could use about two of them very nicely."

"Good!" remarked Ahmik, drawing his knife to begin the process of skinning at once.

"I'll tell you what," said Amesbury, "unless you chaps would like to help here, suppose you pitch the tent. We'll not go any farther today."

"That's bully!" exclaimed Paul, who had been at the point of declaring his inability to walk another mile.

"Everything's bully," declared Amesbury, "and fresh meat just now is the bulliest thing could have come our way. All right, fellows; you get camp going. You'd find skinning pretty hard work in this weather, but Ahmik and I don't mind it."

"My, but I'm glad we don't have to go any farther today," said Paul when he and Dan returned to make camp. "I'm just done for. I can hardly move my feet."

"Does un pain much?" asked Dan, sympathetically.

"You bet it does," and Paul winced.

"Where is un hurtin' most now?"

"Here, and here," indicating his hips, groins and calves.

"Lift un feet--higher."

"Oh! Ouch!"

"Why weren't you sayin' so, now? 'Tis sure th' snowshoe ailment, an'

not just stiffness. Mr. Amesbury'd not be goin' on, an' you havin'

that."

"I thought it was just stiffness, and would wear off if I kept going.

Besides, I didn't want to be a baby and complain."

"'Tis no stiffness. 'Tis th' snowshoe ailment, an' 'twould get worse, an' no better, with travelin'. 'Tis wonderful troublesome sometimes.

Dad says if you gets un, stop an' camp where you is, an' bide there till she gets better. 'Tis th' only way there is, Dad says, t' cure un."

"I never heard of it before."

"Now I'll be pitchin' th' tent, an' you sits on th' flat-sled an'

keeps still."

"Oh, I'd freeze if I sat down. I'd rather help."

They had just got the tent up and a roaring fire in the stove when Amesbury and Ahmik came for toboggans upon which to haul the meat to camp.

"I'm thinkin'," said Dan, "we'll have t' be bidin' here a bit. Paul's havin' th' snowshoe ailment bad."