Read the book: «Grit A-Plenty», page 12

XXIII
HUNGRY DAYS

FLAMES were already breaking out between the logs on the side nearest to which stood the stove. Smoke was pouring out of the tilt door in a cloud. The boys were dazed and bewildered with their sudden awakening, but the fire was already beyond control, and was so far advanced that any attempt to salvage their belongings would have proved fruitless and foolhardy.

The bitter cold of the April night quickly roused them to activity. David rescued their axes, which were sticking into a stump near the tilt door, and their toboggan which fortunately had not been laid against the tilt, as was customary, was drawn to a safe distance. Then, using the toboggan for a seat, they drew on their clothing, and stood impotently and silently watching the burning tilt.

“I’m glad we didn’t have any o’ th’ traps stowed in there,” remarked David presently.

“Our—our rifles are burned!” choked Andy.

“The rifles! I went and forgot un!” exclaimed David, in consternation. “I went and forgot un! I might’ve pitched un out with th’ sleepin’ bags!”

“What ever will we do without un?” asked Andy. “We can’t do any huntin’ now!”

“Our snowshoes!” broke in David. “We clean forgot our snowshoes! We could have saved un, too, if we’d only thought!”

The snowshoes had been hanging on a peg just outside the tilt door, for trappers do not take snowshoes into warm tilts, where the heat would injure the babish, or netting. Smoke issuing from the door had hidden them, and in the bewilderment following their escape the boys had quite forgotten them. Now, like the rifles, the snowshoes were in the ruins of the burning tilt, and destroyed.

This was indeed a sad loss. In the woods snow lay a dozen feet deep, and to move about without the assistance of snowshoes was quite impossible. The game which Andy had accumulated was in the ruins, save two partridges which had been left at the Halfway tilt, and there was no other food nearer than the Narrows. Deprived of their snowshoes they could neither visit their rabbit traps nor set new ones.

“How’ll we make out now?” asked Andy hopelessly. “We can’t travel without snowshoes.”

“Maybe the snow on the river ice is packed hard enough t’ bear us,” suggested David. “Leastways we’ll have t’ try un. We’ve got t’ get t’ th’ Narrows tilt, whatever.”

Silently they lashed their sleeping bags upon the toboggan and made preparations for a night journey to the Halfway tilt. They could not reconnoiter for a suitable place to build a temporary shelter in the soft snow of the woods, as Andy had done when he was alone. A step beyond the packed snow around the tilt, or the more or less packed path leading down to the lake, where they had a water hole in the ice, would plunge them to their armpits.

“I’ll haul th’ flatsled,” suggested David, tightening the lashings of the toboggan. “You go ahead, Andy, and pick out th’ path t’ th’ water hole. We can make un all right t’ th’ lake, and we keeps t’ th’ hard path.”

Fortunately it was starlight, and though one or the other now and again stepped off the path, and each time had a brief battle with the deep snow, they at length emerged upon the white expanse of Lake Namaycush. Here the wind had packed the snow so hard that, though they sank nearly to their knees at every step, walking was not unduly difficult until they reached the river bed.

“’Twon’t be so good travelin’ here as on th’ Lake,” said David. “But I’m thinkin’ we’ll make un.”

David’s prediction was correct. In every turn of the river were deep drifts through which they floundered. Sometimes it became necessary to push the toboggan over these difficult places, using it as a support, working their way foot by foot. Slow and exhausting as it was, they stuck to it with a will, but when day broke they had traveled less than a third of the distance to the Halfway tilt.

“I’m fair scrammed!” Andy at length declared. “I’ve got t’ rest. Can’t we put on a fire and ’bide here and rest a little while?”

“Aye,” agreed David. “’Tis wearisome work. We’ll put on a fire and rest, but we mustn’t ’bide here too long. We’ll have t’ reach th’ tilt before night.”

An hour’s rest, sitting on the toboggan before a cheerful fire in the lee of the river bank, revived them.

“If we only had our snowshoes, and a bit t’ eat!” said Andy, when David suggested that it was time to go. “I’m fair starved!”

“And so be I!” David declared. “’Tis a long time since supper last evenin’. We’ll have th’ partridges, whatever, when we gets t’ th’ Halfway tilt.”

“It seems like I never can stand un so long,” said Andy. “I’m weak for hunger.”

Andy was to learn in the days that followed, what real hunger is, but he was brave enough, and not given to complaint. It is well, sometimes, for all of us to be tried out by the test of experience. Only through experience can we learn the stuff we are made of, and only through deprivations of the comforts to which we are accustomed can we learn to appreciate the good things of life. Most of us are too prone to take things for granted, and to forget that what we have and enjoy are the gifts of a benign Providence.

Many times that day David and Andy declared they “could not walk another step,” but they pushed and floundered bravely on until, in the dusk of evening, they stumbled at last into the friendly shelter of the Halfway tilt.

They were almost too weary to build a fire, but hunger conquered weariness, and presently with a roaring fire in the stove, and one of the partridges boiling—for, famished as they were, David insisted that the other one must be reserved for breakfast—they felt more cheerful. Fortunately they had left some tea in the tilt, and while their supper of half a boiled partridge each and a cup of tea was far from satisfying their healthy young appetites, it refreshed them.

“I’m thinkin’,” remarked David, as they ate, “we’ve got a rare lot t’ be thankful for. Th’ good Lard woke me up just in time last night. If I’d slept a bit longer we’d both been smothered with th’ smoke and burned up.”

“’Twere lucky you wakes,” agreed Andy.

“I’m thinkin’ ’tweren’t luck, now,” protested David. “I’m thinkin’ th’ Lard were watchin’, and wakes us just th’ right time.”

“And maybe,” suggested Andy, in an awed voice, “’twere like we were sayin’. Maybe Mother was close by, watchin’, and maybe she asked th’ Lard to waken us.”

“Yes,” said David, “I been thinkin’ o’ that too. There’s no doubtin’ spirits walks about, and shows theirselves, too, sometimes. Uncle Hi Roper saw an Injun down t’ th’ Post one night paddlin’ a canoe around. He was an Injun that had been dead fifteen years, whatever. Uncle Hi knew he, and called to he, but th’ Injun didn’t answer because he were just a spirit. He kept on paddlin’ and paddlin’ in a circle, and never speakin’. It scared Uncle Hi, and he ran in and told Zeke Hodge, and Zeke comes out, but he couldn’t see th’ Injun then. He’d just disappeared.”

“Oh-h!” breathed Andy. “I’d been scared too! But I wouldn’t be scared at Mother’s spirit.”

“I’d—I’d be glad t’ see un,” said David.

But if their mother’s spirit came that night to look lovingly upon her two brave boys, they did not know it. They had rested but a short time the previous night, and, exhausted from their struggle of nearly twenty hours with the snow drifts, they quickly fell into sound and dreamless sleep.

It was long past daylight when they awoke, to the sound of shrieking wind, and when David looked out of the tilt door he was met by a cloud of driving snow.

“’Tis a wonderful nasty day,” he said.

“Is it too bad t’ travel?” asked Andy, anxiously.

“Aye,” said David regretfully. “We never could face un. We’ll have t’ bide here.”

“And we only has one pa’tridge t’ eat!” mourned Andy.

“Only one pa’tridge,” repeated David solemnly.

“Whatever will we do without eatin’?” asked Andy.

“We’ll have t’ make un do, whatever,” declared David. “They’s no other way.”

“I’m fair starved now,” said Andy. “All we had t’ eat th’ whole of yesterday was half a pa’tridge each.”

“We’ll make out with un. We’ve got tea,” cheered David. “And maybe th’ wind’ll pack th’ snow so th’ travelin’ll be better tomorrow—if th’ storm breaks. ’Tis like t’ be better from this on, anyhow, for th’ river’s wider.”

“If we eats th’ pa’tridge now,” Andy calculated, “we won’t have anything t’ eat to-night or in th’ marnin’!”

“Suppose,” David suggested, “we cooks half of un now, and just drinks th’ broth for breakfast, and keeps th’ meat for night. Then we’ll have th’ other half t’ eat in th’ marnin’ before we starts out.”

“I’m too hungry t’ be waitin’ like that,” objected Andy. “Let’s eat th’ meat now and th’ broth tonight, and keep th’ other half for marnin’!”

David’s hunger doubtless cast the deciding vote, for though reason told him the plan he had suggested was the wiser, his hunger got the better of his judgment. And they were still so hungry when the small portion had been disposed of that in the end they ate the broth as well.

It was a miserable day for the lads. No matter what they talked about their conversation always drifted back to food. They could not avoid it, for food was the thing uppermost in their minds.

A hundred times that day one or the other went out of doors into the storm in the hope that they might discover some sign of its abatement, always to be met by the smothering drift, and when they arose the following morning snow was still falling heavily, though the wind had lost much of its force. They ate the half partridge remaining, but it served only to whet their appetites.

“Th’ snow’s fallin’ thicker’n ever,” announced David, after an inspection late in the afternoon.

“It just seems like I can’t stand un, I’m so hungry!” declared Andy. “Suppose now we start tomorrow marnin’, whatever. I’m thinkin’ we might make un,” he added hopefully.

“We never could make un,” David objected. “We’d perish. We’ll have t’ ’bide here till th’ weather clears. I’m as famished as you be, Andy, b’y, but we’ll have t’ put up with un.”

“It seems like I’d just die o’ hunger!” mourned Andy.

“Sometimes men goes without eatin’ for a week,” consoled David, “and it don’t kill un if they don’t give up to un. There’ll be some way out. Pop says there’s a way out’n every fix if you sticks to it and don’t get scared or give up.”

“Aye,” said Andy, with new courage, “I were thinkin’ of that th’ time I were caught out above th’ big mesh, and then I makes a shelter and I’m all right.”

The thought consoled them both, and though still they talked of food, it was now in the manner of planning great feasts when they should reach home.

“We’ll have Margaret cook us a fine big mess o’ pork, and we’ll eat all we wants, with bread and molasses t’ go with un,” suggested David.

“Oh, but won’t that be eatin’ now!” enthused Andy. “And there’ll be plenty o’ trout, too, when we gets out, and salmon’ll be runnin’ th’ middle o’ July! I could eat half a salmon now if I had un!”

The wind had died out, though all that night the snow fell, but in mid-forenoon of the following day the clouds lightened, and shortly after noon the sun broke out, warm and brilliant.

“We can start now!” exclaimed Andy, “and we’ll make th’ narrows tilt before midnight, whatever, and have a good supper.”

“We can try un,” said David dubiously, “but I’m fearin’ we’ll find th’ fresh snow more than we can manage. There’s been no wind for a day t’ drive un off th’ ice, and yesterday and last night it snowed wonderful hard.”

David was correct. They had found the river bed badly clogged on their journey down from the Lake Namaycush tilt. Now it was vastly worse. They sank to their waists, the moment they attempted to leave the tilt, and finally, quite satisfied that travel was impossible, they retreated disconsolate and discouraged to the tilt.

“We’ll starve now,” said Andy, in a tone almost of resignation. “There’s no way out.”

“’Tis a wonderful bad fix,” David admitted.

“I’m growin’—wonderful weak—in th’ knees,” Andy confessed.

“I feels a weakness, too,” said David, “but not so much hunger as yesterday.”

“’Tis queer, now, but I’m not feelin’ th’ hunger so bad, either. But I feels sleepy and weak,” Andy agreed. “I wonders, now, why ’tis? I were thinkin’ we’d grow hungrier and hungrier, till we couldn’t stand un.”

“’Tis strange,” admitted David, “not bein’ so hungry. But I feels like I could eat anything that could be et, and I’m sleepy, too.”

That is the way with folk who starve. While there’s a bit of food to be had the appetite remains keen, and troublesome, but when the food is gone, a day or two of fastin’ finds the appetite waning, and the eyes growing heavy and drowsy, and over the body steals lassitude and weariness.

David and Andy were prisoners, but it was not their nature to give up and resign themselves to their fate until every expedient had been tried. Thomas had said there was a way out of every fix. This was a bad fix—the worst they had ever been in, they were sure, but if there was a way out of it they must try to discover the way.

“There must be a way, now, Davy!” Andy declared, after a long discussion. “Pop says there’s no fix so bad we can’t get out of un if we only thinks out how.”

“If we had any lashin’,” suggested David, “we might fix up somethin’ that would do for snowshoes. But there’s no deerskin, and there’s nothin’ else, I’m thinkin’, would do.”

“There’s th’ rope on th’ flatsled,” said Andy hopefully.

“That wouldn’t make th’ net for one snowshoe,” objected David.

“Let’s get some sticks and bend un into snowshoe frames, and maybe we’ll think o’ some way t’ net un,” suggested Andy. “’Twill be tryin’, whatever!”

“Aye,” agreed David, “’twill be doin’ somethin’, but I’m seein’ no way t’ make th’ nettin’.”

And so, though it seemed futile enough so far as solving their problem was concerned, they cut the necessary sticks close by the tilt door, and set about their task. With an Indian crooked knife David squared and trimmed the sticks into shape, and, steaming them over the kettle, rendered them pliable. Then they bent and tied them.

All that afternoon and next forenoon they worked unceasingly at their task, and at length the frames of two pairs of bear’s paw snowshoes, each snowshoe with one crossbar to stiffen it, were ready for netting.

But think as they would, that seemed the end. There were no deerskin thongs, and not even rope with which to improvise the netting. The boys were steadily growing weaker, and they had almost decided that after all they were in a “fix” from which there was no possible escape, when Andy made a suggestion that revived their hope.

XXIV
UNCLE BEN APPEARS

“DAVY, I’ve got un! I’ve got un!” Andy suddenly shouted, seizing his sleeping bag with a display of frenzied joy.

“Got what?” asked David anxiously.

“Th’ sleepin’ bags! Th’ sleepin’ bags!” said Andy excitedly. “Don’t you see, Davy?”

“Aye, that’s a sleepin’ bag, I sees,” admitted David, quite startled by Andy’s unusual behavior, and certain enough the lad had gone stark mad, as sometimes happens with starving people.

“And we never thought of un!” explained Andy. “We never thought of un, and they right before our eyes all th’ time! We can cut un into strips and net th’ snowshoes with un!”

“Why didn’t we ever think o’ that, now!” exclaimed David, springing up and seizing his sleeping bag, now no less excited than was Andy himself.

It is the obvious that most of us overlook. The simple things that are before us are the things we never see. There, to be sure, were the sleeping bags. Cut into strips, the sealskins of which they were made would serve very well indeed for netting the snowshoes.

“A skin or two out of one of un’ll be plenty,” said David, opening his jackknife and proceeding at once to cut the sinew with which the bag was sewn. “One skin out’n my bag’ll be enough, Andy, don’t cut yours. You’re wonderful at thinkin’ up things, Andy. I never would have thought of un!”

“I just happened t’ think of un first,” said Andy, unwilling to take to himself all the credit.

Presently one of the sealskins was freed from the bag, and while Andy held it, David, working carefully with his jackknife, cutting around the edge in a spiral, soon reduced it into a single long string.

“Now we’ll have to soak un to make un soft,” said David, dropping the lashing into a kettle of water. “’Twon’t take long.”

Weaving the web upon the frames demanded patience, but late that night the snowshoes were finished, and though they were crude and roughly made, they were strong and serviceable enough for the purpose for which they were required.

“Pop always says right,” remarked Andy, when they hung the four snowshoes on the tilt wall to dry, and stood for a moment surveying their handiwork. “There is always a way out o’ the worst fix ever happened, if we only finds out what ’tis.”

“Aye,” agreed David, “out of any fix!”

“They’ll save our lives,” said Andy. “I—I feels almost like cryin’, Davy.”

“Th’ Lard put un into your head t’ try th’ sealskin, Andy,” David spoke reverently. “Th’ Lard always seems t’ be watchin’ and helpin’ us, whatever happens, and we does what we can t’ help ourselves.”

“Aye,” said Andy, “He does that.”

And all in all the boys were right. He never does much for those who simply pray to Him, and then sit idly with folded hands and expect Him to do the rest. He gave us eyes to see and hands to work and planted in us the power to reason, and He filled the earth with all things necessary for the support of life. He expects us to do our best at all times—to use our brains, and hands and eyes and all our faculties—and then if we have faith He helps us to success, and our success in big things and little things alike depends upon how far we do our best.

It was scarce daybreak when, weak from their long fast, but happy in the assurance that their imprisonment was at an end and that safety was promised them, the boys donned their new snowshoes, and set out to the Narrows tilt.

The snowshoes proved over-small, and sank deeply into the new, soft snow. This held the boys to a slow pace, with the tedious and wearisome effort it demanded, and the sun had set before they made the last turn in the river above the tilt. David was hauling the toboggan, laden with their belongings, while Andy trudged in advance, both dragging their feet with painful effort. Suddenly Andy stopped, peering at the tilt, and shouted excitedly to David:

“Look! Look, Davy! There’s some one at the tilt!”

And David, looking, discovered smoke curling cheerfully up from the stovepipe.

Hurrying forward they were met at the door by a welcoming:

“Good gracious! Good gracious! And here you are! Both of you safe and sound. Dear eyes!” and a hearty handshake from Uncle Ben Rudder and Hiram Muggs.

Tears filled the eyes of both the lads as they grasped the big strong hands of their rescuers. The two men were a connecting link with The Jug and home, and with their appearance a vast load of responsibility rolled from the shoulders of David and Andy. Their lonely struggle with the wilderness was at an end.

“Where’s Indian Jake? Good gracious, where’s Indian Jake?” Uncle Ben exploded.

“We’re starvin’. We haven’t had anything to eat in days and days,” said David, irrevelantly.

Uncle Ben and Hiram were solicitous at once. They hurried the boys into the tilt, and would not permit them to talk or explain until they had eaten a supper of boiled partridges and camp bread and tea which Hiram had already prepared for himself and Uncle Ben.

“Don’t talk, now, but eat! Good gracious! starvin’! Eat, now, lads! Fill up! Fill up!” Uncle Ben kept repeating, though the manner in which the boys ate made it manifestly unnecessary for him to urge them.

When they had eaten until they could eat no more, and altogether more than was well for them, David recounted the events of the preceding weeks, while Uncle Ben interjected at frequent intervals one or all of his favorite exclamations:

“Good gracious! I told you so! D-e-a-r eyes!”

“And,” added David at the conclusion of his narrative, “’twas wonderful fine for you t’ come here t’ help us out.”

“And so Indian Jake has gone!” said Uncle Ben. “Good gracious! I warned Thomas Angus not t’ trust that half-breed!”

“But—but don’t you suppose now he’s gone home with th’ fur?” asked David anxiously.

“Gone home with un? Good gracious, no! I’d never go home with un!” declared Uncle Ben. “And you saw no tracks which way he were goin’?”

“No,” answered David dejectedly, “th’ snow had covered un before we gets here.”

“Hum-m-m! Hum-m-m!” grunted Uncle Ben several times. “He’s well out o’ th’ country by now. Good gracious, yes! No catchin’ him now. And gone with all th’ fur! Good gracious! Good gracious me, with all th’ fur!”

Then he explained that he and Hiram had gone directly to his home at Tuggle Bight after his visit at The Jug in the fall, and all the way home they had talked of how foolish and headstrong Thomas Angus was in sending Indian Jake to the trails with David and Andy.

“And I says t’ Hiram: ‘Hiram,’ says I, ‘Thomas Angus and Doctor Joe has got t’ have th’ fur them lads gets, t’ have th’ little lad cured, and we got t’ see to it that Indian Jake don’t steal un!’ Good gracious, yes! I says that t’ Hiram. Didn’t I, Hiram?”

“You did, now,” agreed Hiram.

“Then we fixes it up t’ trap along the Nascaupee th’ winter, where no one could get out o’ th’ country without our seein’ ’em,” continued Uncle Ben. “Dear eyes, we had un all fixed right, but our plan missed fire! Good gracious! She missed fire! Indian Jake must ha’ seen our tilt with his Indian eyes, and sneaked past down t’other side o’ th’ river in th’ night, and we never see him! Good gracious, never seen hide or hair or feather of him! He must ha’ done that, Hiram?”

“He must ha’ done it,” said Hiram solemnly.

“I were expectin’ he’d try t’ steal Tom Angus’s third o’ th’ fur he hunted, whatever,” declared Uncle Ben, “but I weren’t certain he’d steal your fur, too, lads. Good gracious, no! I knew he were bad, but I didn’t think he’d do that! And he’s gone with un all, lock, stock and barrel! And we’ll never see him again. The scamp! Good gracious, yes, a scamp! Nothin’ else but a scamp, and such a scamp as I never thought lived! D-e-a-r eyes!”

“A wonderful scamp!” agreed Hiram.

Uncle Ben and Hiram had struck up their traps, and then come up the river to Seal Lake to “keep an eye,” as Uncle Ben said, on Indian Jake until the break-up. They had expected to return with the boys and Indian Jake, stopping at their tilt for their own furs as they passed down the Nascaupee, and then, still acting as guard, continue with the boys until the furs were safely delivered to Thomas at The Jug.

“You lads need us now to cheer you a bit! Dear eyes! You needs cheerin’,” Uncle Ben declared. “We’ll wait here for th’ break-up and all go home together, and we’ll cheer you. Good gracious, yes!”

But now that David and Andy were assured their precious furs were really gone they felt anything but cheered. And that night, and for many nights that followed, their hearts were heavy indeed.

“What, now, would become of Jamie?” was the question always on their mind, and they could not answer it, and they even forgot Doctor Joe’s cheerful song.

They could picture Jamie, and their father, and Margaret, and Doctor Joe, with loving and abiding confidence and faith in them waiting at home for their return. Jamie’s lifelong happiness depended upon the furs that had been stolen. Doctor Joe had said that Jamie would become blind if he did not go to the great doctor for the cure. Now Jamie could not go, and the ordeal of their homecoming empty-handed, and the disappointment of Jamie and the others, seemed to them more than they could bear. And when they thought of all this they almost regretted that they had not indeed perished in the blizzard, or starved in the tilt.