Rolf in the Woods Part 29

That was what Rolf had been hoping for. Without such a remark, he would not have dared do as he did. He threw the tent cover over the canoe amids.h.i.+ps, causing the unstable craft to cant: "That won't do," he remarked, and took out several articles, including the medicine chest, put them ash.o.r.e under the bushes, and, when he replaced them, contrived that the medicine should be forgotten.

Next morning Van Cortlandt, rising to prepare his calomel, got a shock to find it not.

"It strikes me," says Rolf, "the last time I saw that, it was on the bank when we trimmed the canoe." Yes, there could be no doubt of it.

Van must live his life in utter druglessness for a time. It gave him somewhat of a scare, much like that a young swimmer gets when he finds he has drifted away from his floats; and, like that same beginner, it braced him to help himself. So Van found that he could swim without corks.

They made a rapid journey down, and in a week they were back with the load.

There was the potion chest where they had left it. Van Cortlandt picked it up with a sheepish smile, and they sat down for evening meal.

Presently Rolf said: "I mind once I seen three little hawks in a nest together. The mother was teaching them to fly. Two of them started off all right, and pretty soon were scooting among the treetops. The other was scared. He says: 'No, mother, I never did fly, and I'm scared I'd get killed if I tried.' At last the mother got mad and shoved him over.

As soon as he felt he was gone, he spread out his wings to save himself.

The wings were all right enough, and long before he struck the ground, he was flying."

Chapter 60. Van Cortlandt's Adventure

The coming of Van had compelled the trappers to build a new and much larger cabin. When they were planning it, the lawyer said: "If I were, you, I'd make it twenty by thirty, with a big stone fireplace."

"Why?"

"I might want to come back some day and bring a friend."

Rolf looked at him keenly. Here was an important possibility, but it was too difficult to handle such large logs without a team; so the new cabin was made fifteen by twenty, and the twenty-foot logs were very slim indeed. Van Cortlandt took much trouble to fix it up inside with two white birch bedsteads, balsam beds, and ba.s.swood mats on the floor.

After the first depression, he had recovered quickly since abandoning his apothecary diet, and now he was more and more in their life, one of themselves. But Quonab never liked him. The incident of the fire-making was one of many which reduced him far below zero in the red man's esteem. When he succeeded with the rubbing-stick fire, he rose a few points; since then he had fallen a little, nearly every day, and now an incident took place which reduced him even below his original low level.

In spite of his admirable perseverance, Van Cortlandt failed in his attempts to get a deer. This was depressing and unfortunate because of the Indian's evident contempt, shown, not in any act, but rather in his avoiding Van and never noticing him; while Van, on his part, discovered that, but for this, that, and the other negligence on Quonab's part, he himself might have done thus and so.

To relieve the situation, Rolf said privately to the Indian, "Can't we find some way of giving him a deer?"

"Humph," was the voluble reply.

"I've heard of that jack-light trick. Can ye work it?"

"Ugh!"

So it was arranged.

Quonab prepared a box which he filled with sand. On three sides of it he put a screen of bark, eighteen inches high, and in the middle he made a good torch of pine knots with a finely frizzled lighter of birch bark. Ordinarily this is placed on the bow of the canoe, and, at the right moment, is lighted by the sportsman. But Quonab distrusted Van as a lighter, so placed this ancient search-light on the after thwart in front of himself and pointing forward, but quartering.

The scheme is to go along the lake sh.o.r.e about dark, as the deer come to the water to drink or eat lily pads. As soon as a deer is located by the sound, the canoe is silently brought to the place, the torch is lighted, the deer stops to gaze at this strange sunrise; its body is not usually visible in the dim light, but the eyes reflect the glare like two lamps; and now the gunner, with a volley of buckshot, plays his part. It is the easiest and most unsportsmanlike of all methods. It has long been declared illegal; and was especially bad, because it victimized chiefly the does and fawns.

But now it seemed the proper way to "save Van Cortlandt's face."

So forth they went; Van armed with his double-barrelled shotgun and carrying in his belt a huge and ornamental hunting knife, the badge of woodcraft or of idiocy, according as yon took Van's view or Quonab's.

Rolf stayed in camp.

At dusk they set out, a slight easterly breeze compelling them to take the eastern sh.o.r.e, for the deer must not smell them. As they silently crossed the lake, the guide's quick eye caught sight of a long wimple on the surface, across the tiny ripples of the breeze--surely the wake of some large animal, most likely a deer. Good luck. Putting on all speed, he sent the canoe flying after it, and in three or four minutes they sighted a large, dark creature moving fast to escape, but it was low on the water, and had no horns. They could not make out what it was. Van sat tensely gazing, with gun in hand, but the canoe overran the swimmer; it disappeared under the prow, and a moment later there scrambled over the gunwale a huge black fisher.

"Knife," cried Quonab, in mortal fear that Van would shoot and blow a hole throught the canoe.

The fisher went straight at the lawyer hissing and snarling with voice like a bear.

Van grasped his knife, and then and there began A most extraordinary fight; holding his a.s.sailant off as best he could, he stabbed again and again with that long blade. But the fisher seemed cased in iron. The knife glanced off or was solidly stopped again and again, while the fierce, active creature, squirming, struggling, clawing, and tearing had wounded the lawyer in a dozen places. Jab, jab went the knife in vain. The fisher seemed to gain in strength and fury. It fastened on Van's leg just below the knee, and grow/ed and tore like a bulldog. Van seized its throat in both hands and choked with all his strength. The brute at length let go and sprang back to attack again, when Quonab saw his chance and felled it with a blow of the paddle across the nose. It tumbled forward; Van lunged to avoid what seemed a new attack, and in a moment the canoe upset, and all were swimming for their lives.

As luck would have it, they had drifted to the west side and the water was barely six feet deep. So Quonab swam ash.o.r.e holding onto a paddle, and hauling the canoe, while Van waded ash.o.r.e, hauling the dead fisher by the tail.

Quonab seized a drift pole and stuck it in the mud as near the place as possible, so they could come again in daylight to get the guns; then silently paddled back to camp.

Next day, thanks to the pole, they found the place and recovered first Van's gun, second, that mighty hunting knife; and learned to the amazement and disgust of all that it had not been out of its sheath: during all that stabbing and slas.h.i.+ng, the keen edge was hidden and the knife was wearing its thick, round scabbard of leather and studs of bra.s.s.

Chapter 61. Rolf Learns Something from Van

A man can't handle his own case, any more than a delirious doctor kin give himself the right physic.--Saying of Si Sylvanne.

However superior Rolf might feel in the canoe or the woods, there was one place where Van Cortlandt took the lead, and that was in the long talks they had by the campfire or in Van's own shanty which Quonab rarely entered.

The most interesting subjects treated in these were ancient Greece and modern Albany. Van Cortlandt was a good Greek scholar, and, finding an intelligent listener, he told the stirring tales of royal Ilion, Athens, and Pergamos, with the loving enthusiasm of one whom the teachers found it easy to instruct in cla.s.sic lore. And when he recited or intoned the rolling Greek heroics of the siege of Troy, Rolf listened with an interest that was strange, considering that he knew not a word of it.

But he said, "It sounded like real talk, and the tramp of men that were all astir with something big a-doing."

Albany and politics, too, were vital strains, and life at the Government House, with the struggling rings and cabals, social and political. These were extraordinarily funny and whimsical to Rolf. No doubt because Van Cortlandt presented them that way. And he more than once wondered how rational humans could waste their time in such tomfoolery and childish things as all conventionalities seemed to be. Van Cortlandt smiled at his remarks, but made no answer for long.

One day, the first after the completion of Van Cortlandt's cabin, as the two approached, the owner opened the door and stood aside for Rolf to enter.

"Go ahead," said Rolf.

"After you," was the polite reply.

"Oh, go on," rejoined the lad, in mixed amus.e.m.e.nt and impatience.

Van Cortlandt touched his hat and went in.

Inside, Rolf turned squarely and said: "The other day you said there was a reason for all kinds o' social tricks; now will you tell me what the d.i.c.kens is the why of all these funny-do's? It 'pears to me a free-born American didn't ought to take off his hat to any one but G.o.d."

Van Cortlandt chuckled softly and said: "You may be very sure that everything that is done in the way of social usage is the result of common-sense, with the exception of one or two things that have continued after the reason for them has pa.s.sed, like the b.u.t.tons you have behind on your coat; they were put there originally to b.u.t.ton the tails out of the way of your sword. Sword wearing and using have pa.s.sed away, but still you see the b.u.t.tons.

"As to taking off your hat to no man: it depends entirely on what you mean by it; and, being a social custom, you must accept its social meaning.

"In the days of knight errantry, every one meeting a stranger had to suppose him an enemy; ten to one he was. And the sign and proof of friendly intention was raising the right hand without a weapon in it.

The hand was raised high, to be seen as far as they could shoot with a bow, and a further proof was added when they raised the vizor and exposed the face. The danger of the highway continued long after knights ceased to wear armour; so, with the same meaning, the same gesture was used, but with a lifting of the hat. If a man did not do it, he was either showing contempt, or hostility for the other, or proving himself an ignorant brute. So, in all civilized countries, lifting the hat is a sign of mutual confidence and respect."

"Well! that makes it all look different. But why should you touch your hat when you went ahead of me just now?"

"Because this is my house; you are my guest. I am supposed to serve you in reasonable ways and give you precedence. Had I let you open my door for me, it would have been putting you in the place of my servant; to balance that, I give you the sign of equality and respect."

"H'm," said Rolf, "'it just shows,' as old Sylvanne sez, 'this yer steel-trap, hair-trigger, c.o.c.ksure jedgment don't do. An' the more a man learns, the less sure he gits. An' things as hez lasted a long time ain't liable to be on a rotten foundation.'"