Rolf in the Woods Part 6

"Ugh! good," was all he said as he rejoined Rolf; and they set out, as the sun went down, on their long journey due northward, Quonab, Rolf, and Skook.u.m. They had not gone a hundred yards before the dog turned back, raced to a place where he had a bone in cache and rejoining there trotted along with his bone.

The high road would have been the easier travelling, but it was very necessary to be un.o.bserved, so they took the trail up the brook Asamuk, and after an hour's tramp came out by the Cat-Rock road that runs westerly. Again they were tempted by the easy path, but again Quonab decided on keeping to the woods. Half an hour later they were halted by Skook.u.m treeing a c.o.o.n. After they had secured the dog, they tramped on through the woods for two hours more, and then, some eight miles from the Pipestave, they halted, Rolf, at least, tired out. It was now midnight. They made a hasty double bed of the canvas cover over a pole above them, and slept till morning, cheered, as they closed their drowsy eyes, by the "Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, Hoo, yah, hoo," of their friend, the barred owl, still to the northward.

The sun was high, and Quonab had breakfast ready before Rolf awoke. He was so stiff with the tramp and the heavy pack that it was with secret joy he learned that they were to rest, concealed in the woods, that day, and travel only by night, until in a different region, where none knew or were likely to stop them. They were now in York State, but that did not by any means imply that they were beyond pursuit.

As the sun rose high, Rolf went forth with his bow and blunt arrows, and then, thanks largely to Skook.u.m, he succeeded in knocking over a couple of squirrels, which, skinned and roasted, made their dinner that day.

At night they set out as before, making about ten miles. The third night they did better, and the next day being Sunday, they kept out of sight.

But Monday morning, bright and clear, although it was the first morning when they were sure of being missed, they started to tramp openly along the highway, with a sense of elation that they had not hitherto known on the joumey. Two things impressed Rolf by their novelty: the curious stare of the country folk whose houses and teams they pa.s.sed, and the violent antagonism of the dogs. Usually the latter could be quelled by shaking a stick at them, or by pretending to pick up a stone, but one huge and savage brindled mastiff kept following and barking just out of stick range, and managed to give Skook.u.m a mauling, until Quonab drew his bow and let fly a blunt arrow that took the brute on the end of the nose, and sent him howling homeward, while Skook.u.m got a few highly satisfactory nips at the enemy's rear. Twenty miles they made that day and twenty-five the next, for now they were on good roads, and their packs were lighter. More than once they found kind farmer folk who gave them a meal. But many times Skook.u.m made trouble for them. The farmers did not like the way he behaved among their hens. Skook.u.m never could be made to grasp the fine zoological distinction between partridges which are large birds and fair game, and hens which are large birds, but not fair game. Such hair splitting was obviously unworthy of study, much less of acceptance.

Soon it was clearly better for Rolf, approaching a house, to go alone, while Quonab held Skook.u.m. The dogs seemed less excited by Rolf's smell, and remembering his own att.i.tude when tramps came to one or another of his ancient homes, he always asked if they would let him work for a meal, and soon remarked that his success was better when he sought first the women of the house, and then, smiling to show his very white teeth, spoke in clear and un-Indian English, which had the more effect coming from an evident Indian.

"Since I am to be an Indian, Quonab, you must give me an Indian name,"

he said after one of these episodes.

"Ugh! Good! That's easy! You are 'Nibowaka,' the wise one." For the Indian had not missed any of the points, and so he was named.

Twenty or thirty miles a day they went now, avoiding the settlements along the river. Thus they saw nothing of Albany, but on the tenth day they reached Fort Edward, and for the first time viewed the great Hudson. Here they stayed as short a time as might be, pushed on by Glen's Falls, and on the eleventh night of the journey they pa.s.sed the old, abandoned fort, and sighted the long stretch of Lake George, with its wooded sh.o.r.e, and glimpses of the mountains farther north.

Now a new thought possessed them--"If only they had the canoe that they had abandoned on the Pipestave." It came to them both at the sight of the limit less water, and especially when Rolf remembered that Lake George joined with Champlain, which again was the highway to all the wilderness.

They camped now as they had fifty times before, and made their meal. The bright blue water dancing near was alluring, inspiring; as they sought the sh.o.r.e Quonab pointed to a track and said, "Deer." He did not show much excitement, but Rolf did, and they returned to the camp fire with a new feeling of elation--they had reached the Promised Land. Now they must prepare for the serious work of finding a hunting ground that was not already claimed.

Quonab, remembering the ancient law of the woods, that parcels off the valleys, each to the hunter first arriving, or succeeding the one who had, was following his own line of thought. Rolf was puzzling over means to get an outfit, canoe, traps, axes, and provisions. The boy broke silence.

"Quonab, we must have money to get an outfit; this is the beginning of harvest; we can easily get work for a month. That will feed us and give us money enough to live on, and a chance to learn something about the country."

The reply was simple, "You are Nibowaka."

The farms were few and scattered here, but there were one or two along the lake. To the nearest one with standing grain Rolf led the way. But their reception, from the first brush with the dog to the final tilt with the farmer, was unpleasant--"He didn't want any darn red-skins around there. He had had two St. Regis Indians last year, and they were a couple of drunken good-for-nothings."

The next was the house of a fat Dutchman, who was just wondering how he should meet the compounded acc.u.mulated emergencies of late hay, early oats, weedy potatoes, lost cattle, and a prospective increase of his family, when two angels of relief appeared at his door, in copper-coloured skins.

"Cahn yo work putty goood?

"Yes, I have always lived on a farm," and Rolf showed his hands, broad and heavy for his years.

"Cahn yo mebby find my lost cows, which I haf not find, already yet?"

Could they! it would be fun to try.

"I giff yo two dollars you pring dem putty kvick."

So Quonab took the trail to the woods, and Rolf started into the potatoes with a hoe, but he was stopped by a sudden outcry of poultry.

Alas! It was Skook.u.m on an ill-judged partridge hunt. A minute later he was ignominiously chained to a penitential post, nor left it during the travellers' sojourn.

In the afternoon Quonab returned with the cattle, and as he told Rolf he saw five deer, there was an unmistakable hunter gleam in his eye.

Three cows in milk, and which had not been milked for two days, was a serious matter, needing immediate attention. Rolf had milked five cows twice a day for five years, and a glance showed old Van Trumper that the boy was an expert.

"Good, good! I go now make feed swine."

He went into the outhouse, but a tow-topped, redcheeked girl ran after him. "Father, father, mother says--" and the rest was lost.

"Myn Hemel! Myn Hemel! I thought it not so soon," and the fat Dutchman followed the child. A moment later he reappeared, his jolly face clouded with a look of grave concern. "Hi yo big Injun, yo cahn paddle canoe?"

Quonab nodded. "Den coom. Annette, pring Tomas und Hendrik." So the father carried two-year-old Hendrik, while the Indian carried six-year-old Tomas, and twelve-year-old Annette followed in vague, uncomprehended alarm. Arrived at the sh.o.r.e the children were placed in the canoe, and then the difficulties came fully to the father's mind--he could not leave his wife. He must send the children with the messenger--In a sort of desperation, "Cahn you dem childen take to de house across de lake, and pring back Mrs. Callan? Tell her Marta Van Trumper need her right now mooch very kvick." The Indian nodded. Then the father hesitated, but a glance at the Indian was enough. Something said, "He is safe," and in spite of sundry wails from the little ones left with a dark stranger, he pushed off the canoe: "Yo take care for my babies," and turned his br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes away.

The farmhouse was only two miles off, and the evening calm; no time was lost: what woman will not instantly drop all work and all interests, to come to the help of another in the trial time of motherhood?

Within an hour the neighbour's wife was holding hands with the mother of the banished tow-heads. He who tempers the wind and appoints the season of the wild deer hinds had not forgotten the womanhood beyond the reach of skilful human help, and with the hard and lonesome life had conjoined a sweet and blessed compensation. What would not her sister of the city give for such immunity; and long before that dark, dread hour of night that brings the ebbing life force low, the wonderful miracle was complete; there was another tow-top in the settler's home, and all was well.

Chapter 16. Life with the Dutch Settler

The Indians slept in the luxuriant barn of logs, with blankets, plenty of hay, and a roof. They were more than content, for now, on the edge of the wilderness, they were very close to wild life. Not a day or a night pa.s.sed without bringing proof of that.

One end of the barn was portioned off for poultry. In this the working staff of a dozen hens were doing their duty, which, on that first night of the "brown angels' visit," consisted of silent slumber, when all at once the hens and the new hands were aroused by a clamorous cackling, which speedily stopped. It sounded like a hen falling in a bad dream, then regaining her perch to go to sleep again. But next morning the body of one of these highly esteemed branches of the egg-plant was found in the corner, partly devoured. Quonab examined the headless hen, the dust around, and uttered the word, "Mink."

Rolf said, "Why not skunk?"

"Skunk could not climb to the perch."

"Weasel then."

"Weasel would only suck the blood, and would kill three or four."

"c.o.o.n would carry him away, so would fox or wildcat, and a marten would not come into the building by night."

There was no question, first, that it was a mink, and, second, that he was hiding about the barn until the hunger pang should send him again to the hen house. Quonab covered the hen's body with two or three large stones so that there was only one approach. In the way of this approach he buried a "number one" trap.

That night they were aroused again; this time by a frightful screeching, and a sympathetic, inquiring cackle from the fowls.

Arising, quickly they entered with a lantem. Rolf then saw a sight that gave him a p.r.i.c.kling in his hair. The mink, a large male, was caught by one front paw. He was writhing and foaming, tearing, sometimes at the trap, sometimes at the dead hen, and sometimes at his own imprisoned foot, pausing now and then to utter the most ear-piercing shrieks, then falling again in crazy animal fury on the trap, splintering his sharp white teeth, grinding the cruel metal with bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y jaws, frothing, snarling, raving mad. As his foemen entered he turned on them a hideous visage of inexpressible fear and hate, rage and horror.

His eyes glanced back green fire in the lantern light; he strained in renewed efforts to escape; the air was rank with his musky smell. The impotent fury of his struggle made a picture that continued in Rolf's mind. Quonab took a stick and with a single blow put an end to the scene, but never did Rolf forget it, and never afterward was he a willing partner when the trapping was done with those relentless jaws of steel.

A week later another hen was missing, and the door of the hen house left open. After a careful examination of the dust, inside and out of the building, Quonab said, "c.o.o.n." It is very unusual for c.o.o.ns to raid a hen house. Usually it is some individual with abnormal tastes, and once he begins, he is sure to come back. The Indian judged that he might be back the next night, so prepared a trap. A rope was pa.s.sed from the door latch to a tree; on this rope a weight was hung, so that the door was selfshutting, and to make it self-locking he leaned a long pole against it inside. Now he propped it open with a single platform, so set that the c.o.o.n must walk on it once he was inside, and so release the door.

The trappers thought they would hear in the night when the door closed, but they were sleepy; they knew nothing until next morning. Then they found that the self-shutter had shut, and inside, crouched in one of the nesting boxes, was a tough, old fighting c.o.o.n. Strange to tell, he had not touched a second hen. As soon as he found himself a prisoner he had experienced a change of heart, and presently his skin was nailed on the end of the barn and his meat was hanging in the larder.

"Is this a marten," asked little Annette. And when told not, her disappointment elicited the information that old Warren, the storekeeper, had promised her a blue cotton dress for a marten skin.

"You shall have the first one I catch," said Rolf.

Life in Van Trumper's was not unpleasant. The mother was going about again in a week. Annette took charge of the baby, as well as of the previous arrivals. Hendrik senior was gradually overcoming his difficulties, thanks to the unexpected help, and a kindly spirit made the hard work not so very hard. The shyness that was at first felt toward the Indians wore off, especially in the case of Rolf, he was found so companionable; and the Dutchman, after puzzling over the combination of brown skin and blue eyes, decided that Rolf was a half-breed.

August wore on not unpleasantly for the boy, but Quonab was getting decidedly restless. He could work for a week as hard as any white man, but his race had not risen to the dignity of patient, unremitting, life-long toil.

"How much money have we now, Nibowaka?" was one of the mid-August indications of restlessness. Rolf reckoned up; half a month for Quonab, $15.00; for himself, $10.00; for finding the cows $2.00--$27.00 in all.

Not enough.