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THE WOLF HUNTERS
A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness
BY
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
1908
To my comrades of the great northern wilderness, those faithful
companions with whom I have shared the joys and hardships of the "long
silent trail," and especially to Mukoki, my red guide and beloved
friend, does the writer gratefully dedicate this volume.
CONTENTS
Chapters
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I The Fight in the Forest
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II How Wabigoon Became a White Man
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III Roderick Sees the Footprint
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IV Roderick's First Taste of the Hunter's Life
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V Shots in the Wilderness
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VI Mukoki Disturbs the Ancient Skeletons
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VII Roderick Discovers the Buckskin Bag
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VIII How Wolf Became the Companion of Men
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IX Wolf Takes Vengeance Upon His People
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X Roderick Explores the Chasm
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XI Roderick's Dream
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XII The Secret of the Skeleton's Hand
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XIII Snowed In
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XIV The Rescue of Wabigoon
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Roderick Holds the Woongas at Bay
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XVI The Surprise at the Post
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CHAPTER I
THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST
Cold winter lay deep in the Canadian wilderness. Over it the moon was
rising, like a red pulsating ball, lighting up the vast white silence of
the night in a shimmering glow. Not a sound broke the stillness of the
desolation. It was too late for the life of day, too early for the
nocturnal roamings and voices of the creatures of the night. Like the
basin of a great amphitheater the frozen lake lay revealed in the light
of the moon and a billion stars. Beyond it rose the spruce forest, black
and forbidding. Along its nearer edges stood hushed walls of tamarack,
bowed in the smothering clutch of snow and ice, shut in by impenetrable
gloom.
A huge white owl flitted out of this rim of blackness, then back again,
and its first quavering hoot came softly, as though the mystic hour of
silence had not yet passed for the night-folk. The snow of the day had
ceased, hardly a breath of air stirred the ice-coated twigs of the
trees. Yet it was bitter cold--so cold that a man, remaining motionless,
would have frozen to death within an hour.
Suddenly there was a break in the silence, a weird, thrilling sound,
like a great sigh, but not human- a sound to make one's blood run faster
and fingers twitch on rifle-stock. It came from the gloom of the
tamaracks. After it there fell a deeper silence than before, and the
owl, like a noiseless snowflake, drifted out over the frozen lake. After
a few moments it came again, more faintly than before. One versed in
woodcraft would have slunk deeper into the rim of blackness, and
listened, and wondered, and watched; for in the sound he would have
recognized the wild, half-conquered note of a wounded beast's suffering
and agony.
Slowly, with all the caution born of that day's experience, a huge bull
moose walked out into the glow of the moon. His magnificent head,
drooping under the weight of massive antlers, was turned inquisitively
across the lake to the north. His nostrils were distended, his eyes
glaring, and he left behind a trail of blood. Half a mile away he caught
the edge of the spruce forest. There something told him he would find
safety. A hunter would have known that he was wounded unto death as he
dragged himself out into the foot-deep snow of the lake.
A dozen rods out from the tamaracks he stopped, head thrown high, long
ears pitched forward, and nostrils held half to the sky. It is in this
attitude that a moose listens when he hears a trout splash
three-quarters of a mile away. Now there was only the vast, unending
silence, broken only by the mournful hoot of the snow owl on the other
side of the lake. Still the great beast stood immovable, a little pool
of blood growing upon the snow under his forward legs. What was the
mystery that lurked in the blackness of yonder forest? Was it danger?
The keenest of human hearing would have detected nothing. Yet to those
long slender ears of the bull moose, slanting beyond the heavy plates of
his horns, there came a sound. The animal lifted his head still higher
to the sky, sniffed to the east, to the west, and back to the shadows of
the tamaracks. But it was the north that held him.
From beyond that barrier of spruce there soon came a sound that man
might have heard--neither the beginning nor the end of a wail, but
something like it. Minute by minute it came more clearly, now growing in
volume, now almost dying away, but every instant approaching--the
distant hunting call of the wolf-pack! What the hangman's noose is to
the murderer, what the leveled rifles are to the condemned spy, that
hunt-cry of the wolves is to the wounded animal of the forests.
Instinct taught this to the old bull. His head dropped, his huge antlers
leveled themselves with his shoulders, and he set off at a slow trot
toward the east. He was taking chances in thus crossing the open, but to
him the spruce forest was home, and there he might find refuge. In his
brute brain he reasoned that he could get there before the wolves broke
cover. And then--
Again he stopped, so suddenly that his forward legs doubled under him
and he pitched into the snow. This time, from the direction of the
wolf-pack, there came the ringing report of a rifle! It might have been
a mile or two miles away, but distance did not lessen the fear it
brought to the dying king of the North. That day he had heard the same
sound, and it had brought mysterious and weakening pain in his vitals.
With a supreme effort he brought himself to his feet, once more sniffed
into the north, the east, and the west, then turned and buried himself
in the black and frozen wilderness of tamarack.
Stillness fell again with the sound of the rifle-shot. It might have
lasted five minutes or ten, when a long, solitary howl floated from
across the lake. It ended in the sharp, quick yelp of a wolf on the
trail, and an instant later was taken up by others, until the pack was
once more in full cry. Almost simultaneously a figure darted out upon
the ice from the edge of the forest. A dozen paces and it paused and
turned back toward the black wall of spruce.
"Are you coming, Wabi?"
A voice answered from the woods. "Yes. Hurry up--run!"
Thus urged, the other turned his face once more across the lake. He was
a youth of not more than eighteen. In his right hand he carried a club.
His left arm, as if badly injured, was done up in a sling improvised
from a lumberman's heavy scarf. His face was scratched and bleeding, and
his whole appearance showed that he was nearing complete exhaustion. For
a few moments he ran through the snow, then halted to a staggering walk.
His breath came in painful gasps. The club slipped from his nerveless
fingers, and conscious of the deathly weakness that was overcoming him
he did not attempt to regain it. Foot by foot he struggled on, until
suddenly his knees gave way under him and he sank down into the snow.
From the edge of the spruce forest a young Indian now ran out upon the
surface of the lake. His breath was coming quickly, but with excitement
rather than fatigue. Behind him, less than half a mile away, he could
hear the rapidly approaching cry of the hunt-pack, and for an instant he
bent his lithe form close to the snow, measuring with the acuteness of
his race the distance of the pursuers. Then he looked for his white
companion, and failed to see the motionless blot that marked where the
other had fallen. A look of alarm shot into his eyes, and resting his
rifle between his knees he placed his hands, trumpet fashion, to his
mouth and gave a signal call which, on a still night like this, carried
for a mile.
"Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o! Wa-hoo-o-o-o-o-o!"
At that cry the exhausted boy in the snow staggered to his feet, and
-with an answering shout which came but faintly to the ears of the
Indian, resumed his flight across the lake. Two or three minutes later
Wabi came up beside him.
"Can you make it, Rod?" he cried.
The other made an effort to answer, but his reply was hardly more than a
gasp. Before Wabi could reach out to support him he had lost his little
remaining strength and fallen for a second time into the snow.
"I'm afraid--I--can't do it--Wabi," he whispered. "I'm--bushed--"
The young Indian dropped his rifle and knelt beside the wounded boy,
supporting his head against his own heaving shoulders.
"It's only a little farther, Rod," he urged. "We can make it, and take
to a tree. We ought to have taken to a tree back there, but I didn't
know that you were so far gone; and there was a good chance to make
camp, with three cartridges left for the open lake."
"Only three!"
"That's all, but I ought to make two of them count in this light. Here,
take hold of my shoulders! Quick!"
He doubled himself like a jack-knife in front of his half-prostrate
companion. From behind them there came a sudden chorus of the wolves,
louder and clearer than before.
"They've hit the open and we'll have them on the lake inside of two
minutes," he cried. "Give me your arms, Rod! There! Can you hold the
gun?"
He straightened himself, staggering under the other's weight, and set
off on a half-trot for the distant tamaracks. Every muscle in his
powerful young body was strained to its utmost tension. Even more fully
than his helpless burden did he realize the peril at their backs.
Three minutes, four minutes more, and then--
A terrible picture burned in Wabi's brain, a picture he had carried from
boyhood of another child, torn and mangled before his very eyes by these
outlaws of the North, and he shuddered. Unless he sped those three
remaining bullets true, unless that rim of tamaracks was reached in
time, he knew what their fate would be. There flashed into his mind one
last resource. He might drop his wounded companion and find safety for
himself. But it was a thought that made Wabi smile grimly. This was not
the first time that these two had risked their lives together, and that
very day Roderick had fought valiantly for the other, and had been the
one to suffer. If they died, it would be in company. Wabi made up his
mind to that and clutched the other's arms in a firmer grip. He was
pretty certain that death faced them both. They might escape the wolves,
but the refuge of a tree, with the voracious pack on guard below, meant
only a more painless end by cold. Still, while there was life there was
hope, and he hurried on through the snow, listening for the wolves
behind him and with each moment feeling more keenly that his own powers
of endurance were rapidly reaching an end.
For some reason that Wabi could not explain the hunt-pack had ceased to
give tongue. Not only the allotted two minutes, but five of them, passed
without the appearance of the animals on the lake. Was it possible that
they! had lost the trail? Then it occurred to the Indian that perhaps he
had wounded one of the pursuers, and that the others, discovering his
injury, had set upon him and were now participating in one of the
cannibalistic feasts that had saved them thus far. Hardly had he thought
of this possibility when he was thrilled by a series of long howls, and
looking back he discerned a dozen or more dark objects moving swiftly
over their trail.
Not an eighth of a mile ahead was the tamarack forest. Surely Rod could
travel that distance!
"Run for it, Rod!" he cried. "You're rested now. I'll stay here and
stop 'em!"
He loosened the other's arms, and as he did so his rifle fell from the
white boy's nerveless grip and buried itself in the snow. As he relieved
himself of his burden he saw for the first time the deathly pallor and
partly closed eyes of his companion. With a new terror filling his own
faithful heart he knelt beside the form which lay so limp and lifeless,
his blazing eyes traveling from the ghastly face to the oncoming wolves,
his rifle ready in his hands. He could now discern the wolves trailing
out from the spruce forest like ants. A dozen of them were almost within
rifle-shot. Wabi knew that it was with this vanguard of the pack that he
must deal if he succeeded in stopping the scores behind. Nearer and
nearer he allowed them to come, until the first were scarce two hundred
feet away. Then, with a sudden shout, the Indian leaped to his feet and
dashed fearlessly toward them. This unexpected move, as he had intended,
stopped the foremost wolves in a huddled group for an instant, and in
this opportune moment Wabi leveled his gun and fired. A long howl of
pain testified to the effect of the shot. Hardly had it begun when Wabi
fired again, this time with such deadly precision that one of the
wolves, springing high into the air, tumbled back lifeless among the
pack without so much as making a sound.
Running to the prostrate Roderick, Wabi drew him quickly upon his back,
clutched his rifle in the grip of his arm, and started again for the
tamaracks. Only once did he look back, and then he saw the wolves
gathering in a snarling, fighting crowd about their slaughtered
comrades. Not until he had reached the shelter of the tamaracks did the
Indian youth lay down his burden, and then in his own exhaustion he fell
prone upon the snow, his black eyes fixed cautiously upon the feasting
pack. A few minutes later he discerned dark spots appearing here and
there upon the whiteness of the snow, and at these signs of the
termination of the feast he climbed up into the low branches of a spruce
and drew Roderick after him. Not until then did the wounded boy show
visible signs of life. Slowly he recovered from the faintness which had
overpowered him, and after a little, with some assistance from Wabi, was
able to place himself safely on a higher limb.
"That's the second time, Wabi," he said, reaching a hand down
affectionately to the other's shoulder. "Once from drowning, once from
the wolves. I've got a lot to even up with you!"
"Not after what happened to-day!"
The Indian's dusky face was raised until the two were looking into each
other's eyes, with a gaze of love, and trust. Only a moment thus, and
instinctively their glance turned toward the lake. The wolf pack was in
plain view. It was the biggest pack that Wabi, in all his life in the
wilderness, had ever seen, and he mentally figured that there were at
least half a hundred animals in it. Like ravenous dogs after having a
few scraps of meat flung among them, the wolves were running about,
nosing here and there, as if hoping to find a morsel that might have
escaped discovery. Then one of them stopped on the trail and, throwing
himself half on his haunches, with his head turned to the sky like a
baying hound, started the hunt-cry.
"There's two packs. I thought it was too big for one," exclaimed the
Indian. "See! Part of them are taking up the trail and the others are
lagging behind gnawing the bones of the dead wolf. Now if we only had
our ammunition and the other gun those murderers got away from us, we'd
make a fortune. What--"
Wabi stopped with a suddenness that spoke volumes, and the supporting
arm that he had thrown around Rod's waist tightened until it caused the
wounded youth to flinch. Both boys stared in rigid silence. The wolves
were crowding around a spot in the snow half-way between the tamarack
refuge and the scene of the recent feast. The starved animals betrayed
unusual excitement. They had struck the pool of blood and red trail made
by the dying moose!
"What is it, Wabi?" whispered Rod.
The Indian did not answer. His black eyes gleamed with a new fire, his
lips were parted in anxious anticipation, and he seemed hardly to
breathe in his tense interest. The wounded boy repeated his question,
and as if in reply the pack swerved to the west and in a black silent
mass swept in a direction that would bring them into the tamaracks a
hundred yards from the young hunters.
"A new trail!" breathed Wabi. "A new trail, and a hot one! Listen! They
make no sound. It is always that way when they are close to a kill!"
As they looked the last of the wolves disappeared in the forest. For a
few moments there was silence, then a chorus of howls came from deep in
the woods behind them.
"Now is our chance," cried the Indian. "They've broken again, and their
game--"
He had partly slipped from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm from
Rod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack again
turned in their direction. A heavy crashing in the underbrush not a
dozen rods away sent Wabi in a hurried scramble for his perch.
"Quick--higher up!" he warned excitedly. "They're coming out here--right
under us! If we can get up so that they can't see us, or smell us--"
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a huge shadowy bulk rushed
past them not more than fifty feet from the spruce in which they had
sought refuge. Both of the boys recognized it as a bull moose, though it
did not occur to either of them that it was the same animal at which
Wabi had taken a long shot that same day a couple of miles back. In
close pursuit came the ravenous pack. Their heads hung close to the
bloody trail, hungry, snarling cries coming from between their gaping
jaws, they swept across the little opening almost at the young hunters'
feet. It was a sight which Rod had never expected to see, and one which
held even the more experienced Wabi fascinated. Not a sound fell from
either of the youths' lips as they stared down upon the fierce, hungry
outlaws of the wilderness. To Wabi this near view of the pack told a
fateful story; to Rod it meant nothing more than the tragedy about to be
enacted before his eyes. The Indian's keen vision saw in the white
moonlight long, thin bodies, starved almost to skin and bone; to his
companion the onrushing pack seemed filled only with agile, powerful
beasts, maddened to almost fiendish exertions by the nearness of their
prey.
In a flash they were gone, but in that moment of their passing there was
painted a picture to endure a lifetime in the memory of Roderick Drew.
And it was to be followed by one even more tragic, even more thrilling.
To the dazed, half-fainting young hunter it seemed but another instant
before the pack overhauled the old bull. He saw the doomed monster turn,
in the stillness heard the snapping of jaws, the snarling of
hunger-crazed animals, and a sound that might have been a great, heaving
moan or a dying bellow. In Wabi's veins the blood danced with the
excitement that stirred his forefathers to battle. Not a line of the
tragedy that was being enacted before his eyes escaped this native son
of the wilderness. It was a magnificent fight! He knew that the old bull
would die by inches in the one-sided duel, and that when it was over
there would be more than one carcass for the survivors to gorge
themselves upon. Quietly he reached up and touched his companion.
"Now is our time," he said. "Come on--still--and on this side of the
tree!"
He slipped down, foot by foot, assisting Rod as he did so, and when both
had reached the ground he bent over as before, that the other might get
upon his back.
"I can make it alone, Wabi," whispered the wounded boy. "Give me a lift
on the arm, will you?"
With the Indian's arm about his waist, the two set off into the
tamaracks. Fifteen minutes later they came to the bank of a small frozen
river. On the opposite side of this, a hundred yards down, was a sight
which both, as if by a common impulse, welcomed with a glad cry. Close
to the shore, sheltered by a dense growth of spruce, was a bright
camp-fire. In response to Wabi's far-reaching whoop a shadowy figure
appeared in the glow and returned the shout.
"Mukoki!" cried the Indian.
"Mukoki!" laughed Rod, happy that the end was near.
Even as he spoke he swayed dizzily, and Wabi dropped his gun that he
might keep his companion from falling into the snow.
CHAPTER II
HOW WABIGOON BECAME A WHITE MAN
Had the young hunters the power of looking into the future, their
camp-fire that night on the frozen Ombabika might have been one of their
last, and a few days later would have seen them back on the edges of
civilization. Possibly, could they have foreseen the happy culmination
of the adventures that lay before them, they would still have gone on,
for the love of excitement is strong in the heart of robust youth. But
this power of discernment was denied them, and only in after years, with
the loved ones of their own firesides close about them, was the whole
picture revealed. And in those days, when they would gather with their
families about the roaring logs of winter and live over again their
early youth, they knew that all the gold in the world would not induce
them to part with their memories of the life that had gone before.
A little less than thirty years previous to the time of which we write,
a young man named John Newsome left the great city of London for the New
World. Fate had played a hard game with young Newsome--had first robbed
him of both parents, and then in a single fitful turn of her wheel
deprived him of what little property he had inherited. A little later he
came to Montreal, and being a youth of good education and considerable
ambition, he easily secured a position and worked himself into the
confidence of his employers, obtaining an appointment as factor at
Wabinosh House, a Post deep in the wilderness of Lake Nipigon.
In the second year of his reign at Wabinosh--a factor is virtually king
in his domain--there came to the Post an Indian chief named Wabigoon,
and with him his daughter, Minnetaki, in honor of whose beauty and
virtue a town was named in after years. Minnetaki was just budding into
the early womanhood of her race, and possessed a beauty seldom seen
among Indian maidens. If there is such a thing as love at first sight,
it sprang into existence the moment John Newsome's eyes fell upon this
lovely princess. Thereafter his visits to Wabigoon's village, thirty
miles deeper in the wilderness, were of frequent occurrence. From the
beginning Minnetaki returned the young factor's affections, but a most
potent reason prevented their marriage. For a long time Minnetaki had
been ardently wooed by a powerful young chief named Woonga, whom she
cordially detested, but upon whose favor and friendship depended the
existence of her father's sway over his hunting-grounds.
With the advent of the young factor the bitterest rivalry sprang up
between the two suitors, which resulted in two attempts upon Newsome's
life, and an ultimatum sent by Woonga to Minnetaki's father. Minnetaki
herself replied to this ultimatum. It was a reply that stirred the fires
of hatred and revenge to fever heat in Woonga's breast. One dark night,
at the head of a score of his tribe, he fell upon Wabigoon's camp, his
object being the abduction of the princess. While the attack was
successful in a way, its main purpose failed. Wabigoon and a dozen of
his tribesmen were slain, but in the end Woonga was driven off.
A swift messenger brought news of the attack and of the old chief's
death to Wabinosh House, and with a dozen men Newsome hastened to the
assistance of his betrothed and her people. A counter attack was made
upon Woonga and he was driven deep into the wilderness with great loss.
Three days later Minnetaki became Newsome's wife at the Hudson Bay Post.
From that hour dated one of the most sanguinary feuds in the history of
the great trading company; a feud which, as we shall see, was destined
to live even unto the second generation.
Woonga and his tribe now became no better than outlaws, and preyed so
effectively upon the remnants of the dead Wabigoon's people that the
latter were almost exterminated. Those who were left moved to the
vicinity of the Post. Hunters from Wabinosh House were ambushed and
slain. Indians who came to the Post to trade were regarded as enemies,
and the passing of years seemed to make but little difference. The feud
still existed. The outlaws came to be spoken of as "Woongas," and a
Woonga was regarded as a fair target for any man's rifle.
Meanwhile two children came to bless the happy union of Newsome and his
lovely Indian wife. One of these, the eldest, was a boy, and in honor of
the old chief he was named Wabigoon, and called Wabi for short. The
other was a girl, three years younger, and Newsome insisted that she be
called Minnetaki. Curiously enough, the blood of Wabi ran almost pure to
his Indian forefathers, while Minnetaki, as she became older, developed
less of the wild beauty of her mother and more of the softer loveliness
of the white race, her wealth of soft, jet black hair and her great dark
eyes contrasting with the lighter skin of her father's blood. Wabi, on
the other hand, was an Indian in appearance from his moccasins to the
crown of his head, swarthy, sinewy, as agile as a lynx, and with every
instinct in him crying for the life of the wild. Yet born in him was a
Caucasian shrewdness and intelligence that reached beyond the factor
himself.
One of Newsome's chief pleasures in life had been the educating of his
woodland bride, and it was the ambition of both that the little
Minnetaki and her brother be reared in the ways of white children.
Consequently both mother and father began their education at the Post;
they were sent to the factor's school and two winters were passed in
Port Arthur that they might have the advantage of thoroughly equipped
schools. The children proved themselves unusually bright pupils, and by
the time Wabi was sixteen and Minnetaki twelve one would not have known
from their manner of speech that Indian blood ran in their veins. Yet
both, by the common desire of their parents, were familiar with the life
of the Indian and could talk fluently the tongue of their mother's
people.
It was at about this time in their lives that the Woongas became
especially daring in their depredations. These outlaws no longer
pretended to earn their livelihood by honest means, but preyed upon
trappers and other Indians without discrimination, robbing and killing
whenever safe opportunities offered themselves. The hatred for the
people of Wabinosh House became hereditary, and the Woonga children grew
up with it in their hearts. The real cause of the feud had been
forgotten by many, though not by Woonga himself. At last so daring did
he become that the provincial government placed a price upon his head
and upon those of a number of his most notorious followers. For a time
the outlaws were driven from the country, but the bloodthirsty chief
himself could not be captured.
When Wabi was seventeen years of age it was decided that he should be
sent to some big school in the States for a year. Against this plan the
young Indian--nearly all people regarded him as an Indian, and Wabi was
proud of the fact--fought with all of the arguments at his command. He
loved the wilds with the passion of his mother's race. His nature
revolted at the thoughts of a great city with its crowded streets, its
noise, and bustle, and dirt. It was then that Minnetaki pleaded with
him, begged him to go for just one year, and to come back and tell her
of all he had seen and teach her what he had learned. Wabi loved his
beautiful little sister beyond anything else on earth, and it was she
more than his parents who finally induced him to go.
For three months Wabi devoted himself faithfully to his studies in
Detroit. But each week added to his loneliness and his longings for
Minnetaki and his forests. The passing of each day became a painful task
to him. To Minnetaki he wrote three times each week, and three times each
week the little maiden at Wabinosh House wrote long, cheering
letters to her brother--though they came to Wabi only about twice a
month, because only so often did the mail-carrier go out from the Post.
It was at this time in his lonely school life that Wabigoon became
acquainted with Roderick Drew. Roderick, even as Wabi fancied himself to
be just at this time, was a child of misfortune. His father had died
before he could remember, and the property he had left had dwindled
slowly away during the passing of years. Rod was spending his last week
in school when he met Wabigoon. Necessity had become his grim master,
and the following week he was going to work. As the boy described the
situation to his Indian friend, his mother "had fought to the last ditch
to keep him in school, but now his time was up." Wabi seized upon the
white youth as an oasis in a vast desert. After a little the two became
almost inseparable, and their friendship culminated in Wabi's going to
live in the Drew home. Mrs. Drew was a woman of education and
refinement, and her interest in Wabigoon was almost that of a mother. In
this environment the ragged edges were smoothed away from the Indian
boy's deportment, and his letters to Minnetaki were more and more filled
with enthusiastic descriptions of his new friends. After a little Mrs.
Drew received a grateful letter of thanks from the princess mother at
Wabinosh House, and thus a pleasant correspondence sprang up between the
two.
There were now few lonely hours for the two boys. During the long winter
evenings, when Roderick was through with his day's work and Wabi had
completed his studies, they would sit before the fire and the Indian
youth would describe the glorious life of the vast northern wilderness;
and day by day, and week by week, there steadily developed within Rod's
breast a desire to see and live that life. A thousand plans were made, a
thousand adventures pictured, and the mother would smile and laugh and
plan with them.
But in time the end of it all came, and Wabi went back to the princess
mother, to Minnetaki, and to his forests. There were tears in the boys'
eyes when they parted, and the mother cried for the Indian boy who was
returning to his people. Many of the days that followed were painful to
Roderick Drew. Eight months had bred a new nature in him, and when Wabi
left it was as if a part of his own life had gone with him. Spring came
and passed, and then summer. Every mail from Wabinosh House brought
letters for the Drews, and never did an Indian courier drop a pack at
the Post that did not carry a bundle of letters for Wabigoon.
Then in the early autumn, when September frosts were turning the leaves
of the North to red and gold, there came the long letter from Wabi which
brought joy, excitement and misgiving into the little home of the mother
and her son. It was accompanied by one from the factor himself, another
from the princess mother, and by a tiny note from Minnetaki, who pleaded
with the others that Roderick and Mrs. Drew might spend the winter with
them at Wabinosh House.
"You need not fear about losing your position." wrote Wabigoon. "We
shall make more money up here this winter than you could earn in Detroit
in three years. We will hunt wolves. The country is alive with them, and
the government gives a bounty of fifteen dollars for every scalp taken.
Two winters ago I killed forty and I did not make a business of it at
that. I have a tame wolf which we use as a decoy. Don't bother about a
gun or anything like that. We have everything here."
For several days Mrs. Drew and her son deliberated upon the situation
before a reply was sent to the Newsomes. Roderick pleaded, pictured the
glorious times they would have, the health that it would give them, and
marshaled in a dozen different ways his arguments in favor of accepting
the invitation. On the other hand, his mother was filled with doubt.
Their finances were alarmingly low, and Rod would be giving up a sure
though small income, which was now supporting them comfortably. His
future was bright, and that winter would see him promoted to ten dollars
a week in the mercantile house where he was employed. In the end they
came to an understanding. Mrs. Drew would not go to Wabinosh House, but
she would allow Roderick to spend the winter there- and word to this
effect was sent off into the wilderness.
Three weeks later came Wabigoon's reply. On the tenth of October he
would meet Rod at Sprucewood, on the Black Sturgeon River. Thence they
would travel by canoe up the Sturgeon River to Sturgeon Lake, take
portage to Lake Nipigon, and arrive at Wabinosh House before the ice of
early winter shut them in. There was little time to lose in making
preparations, and the fourth day following the receipt of Wabi's letter
found Rod and his mother waiting for the train which was to whirl the
boy into his new life. Not until the eleventh did he arrive at
Sprucewood. Wabi was there to meet him, accompanied by an Indian from
the Post; and that same afternoon the journey up Black Sturgeon River
was begun.
CHAPTER III
RODERICK SEES THE FOOTPRINT
Rod was now plunged for the first time in his life into the heart of theWilderness. Seated in the bow of the birch-bark canoe which was carrying
them up the Sturgeon, with Wabi close behind him, he drank in the wild
beauties of the forests and swamps through which they slipped almost as
noiselessly as shadows, his heart thumping in joyous excitement, his
eyes constantly on the alert for signs of the big game which Wabi told
him was on all sides of them. Across his knees, ready for instant use,
was Wabi's repeating rifle. The air was keen with the freshness left by
night frosts. At times deep masses of gold and crimson forests shut them
in, at others, black forests of spruce came down to the river's edge;
again they would pass silently through great swamps of tamaracks. In
this vast desolation there was a mysterious quiet, except for the
occasional sounds of wild life. Partridges drummed back in the woods,
flocks of ducks got up with a great rush of wings at almost every turn,
and once, late in the morning of the first day out, Rod was thrilled by
a crashing in the undergrowth scarcely a stone's throw from the canoe.
He could see saplings twisting and bending, and heard Wabi whisper
behind him:
"A moose!"
They were words to set his hands trembling and his whole body quivering
with anticipation. There was in him now none of the old hunter's
coolness, none of the almost stoical indifference with which the men of
the big North hear these sounds of the wild things about them. Rod had
yet to see his first big game.
That moment came in the afternoon. The canoe had skimmed lightly around
a bend in the river. Beyond this bend a mass of dead driftwood had
wedged against the shore, and this driftwood, as the late sun sank
behind the forests, was bathed in a warm yellow glow. And basking in
this glow, as he loves to do at the approach of winter nights, was an
animal, the sight of which drew a sharp, excited cry from between Rod's
lips. In an instant he had recognized it as a bear. The animal was taken
completely by surprise and was less than half a dozen rods away. Quick
as a flash, and hardly realizing what he was doing, the boy drew his
rifle to his shoulder, took quick aim and fired. The bear was already
clambering up the driftwood, but stopped suddenly at the report, slipped
as if about to fall back--then continued his retreat.
"You hit 'im!" shouted Wabi. "Quick-try 'im again!"
Rod's second shot seemed to have no effect In his excitement he jumped
to his feet, forgetting that he was in a frail canoe, and took a last
shot at the big black beast that was just about to disappear over the
edge of the driftwood. Both Wabi and his Indian companion flung
themselves on the shore side of their birch and dug their paddles deep
into the water, but their efforts were unavailing to save their reckless
comrade. Unbalanced by the concussion of his gun, Rod plunged backward
into the river, but before he had time to sink, Wabi reached over and
grabbed him by the arm.
"Don't make a move--and hang on to the gun!" he warned. "If we try to
get you in here we'll all go over!" He made a sign to the Indian, who
swung the canoe slowly inshore. Then he grinned down into Rod's
dripping, unhappy face.
"By George, that last shot was a dandy for a tenderfoot! You got your
bear!"
Despite his uncomfortable position, Rod gave a whoop of joy, and no
sooner did his feet touch solid bottom than he loosened himself from
Wabi's grip and plunged toward the driftwood. On its very top he found
the bear, as dead as a bullet through its side and another through its
head could make it. Standing there beside his first big game, dripping
and shivering, he looked down upon the two who were pulling their canoe
ashore and gave, a series of triumphant whoops that could have been
heard half a mile away.
"It's camp and a fire for you," laughed Wabi, hurrying up to him. "This
is better luck than I thought you'd have, Rod. We'll have a glorious
feast to-night, and a fire of this driftwood that will show you what
makes life worth the living up here in the North. Ho, Muky," he called
to the old Indian, "cut this fellow up, will you? I'll make camp."
"Can we keep the skin?" asked Rod. "It's my first, you know, and--"
"Of course we can. Give us a hand with the fire, Rod; it will keep you
from catching cold."
In the excitement of making their first camp, Rod almost forgot that he
was soaked to the skin, and that night was falling about them. The first
step was the building of a fire, and soon a great, crackling, almost
smokeless blaze was throwing its light and heat for thirty feet around.
Wabi now brought blankets from the canoe, stripped off a part of his own
clothes, made Rod undress, and soon had that youth swathed in dry togs,
while his wet ones were hung close up to the fire. For the first time
Rod saw the making of a wilderness shelter. Whistling cheerily, Wabi got
an ax from the canoe, went into the edge of the cedars and cut armful
after armful of saplings and boughs. Tying his blankets about himself,
Rod helped to carry these, a laughable and grotesque figure as he
stumbled about clumsily in his efforts. Within half an hour the cedar
shelter was taking form. Two crotched saplings were driven into the
ground eight feet apart, and from one to the other, resting in the
crotches, was placed another sapling, which formed the ridge-pole; and
from this pole there ran slantwise to the earth half a dozen others,
making a framework upon which the cedar boughs were piled. By the time
the old Indian had finished his bear the home was completed, and with
its beds of sweet-smelling boughs, the great camp-fire in front and the
dense wilderness about them growing black with the approach of night,
Rod thought that nothing in picture-book or story could quite equal the
reality of that moment. And when, a few moments later, great bear-steaks
were broiling over a mass of coals, and the odor of coffee mingled with
that of meal-cakes sizzling on a heated stone, he knew that his dearest
dreams had come true.
That night in the glow of the camp-fire Rod listened to the thrilling
stories of Wabi and the old Indian, and lay awake until nearly dawn,
listening to the occasional howl of a wolf, mysterious splashings in the
river and the shrill notes of the night birds. There were varied
experiences in the following three days: one frosty morning before the
others were awake he stole out from the camp with Wabi's rifle and shot
twice at a red deer--which he missed both times; there was an exciting
but fruitless race with a swimming caribou in Sturgeon Lake, at which
Wabi himself took three long-range shots without effect.
It was on a glorious autumn afternoon that Wabi's keen eyes first
descried the log buildings of the Post snuggled in the edge of the
seemingly unending forest. As they approached he joyful |
