Chapter XIV: A Dead Water Tragedy

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle, at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a youth who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering in the neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome addition to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid recovery she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of the forest about her home. But finally, after many weeks, the uncle decides, because of reasons which will be known later, that it would be better for Margot if Adrian left them. Accordingly, he puts the matter before the young man, who, although reluctant to leave his new friends, volunteers to go. Under the guidance of Pierre Ricord, a young Indian, the lad sets out for the nearest settlement. Once in the woods, however, they decide to remain there for a while. During their wanderings the two had become separated for a time and then it is that Adrian hears a noise which makes his pulse beat faster. It is the call of a moose.

But Pierre, also, had heard that distant “Ugh-u-u-ugh!” and instantly paused.

His own anxiety was lest Adrian should not hear and be still. Fortunately, the wind was in their favor and the sensitive nostrils of the moose less apt to scent them. Having listened a moment, he dropped his pack so softly that, heavy as it was, it scarcely made the undergrowth crack. His gun was always loaded, and, now making it ready for prompt use, he started back toward his companion. The Indian in his nature came to the fore. His step was alert, precise, and light as that of any four-footed forester. When within sight of the other lad, listening and motionless, his eye brightened.

“If he keeps that way, maybe--Ah!”

The moose call again, but farther off. This was a disappointment, but they were on good ground for hunting and another chance would come. Meanwhile, they would better make all haste to the thoroughfare. There would be the better place, and out in the canoe they’d have a wider range.

“Here, you. Give me the boat. Did you hear it?”

“Did I not? But you had the gun!”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d had it. Too far off. Let’s get on.”

Adrian lifted the pack and dropped it in disgust. “I can’t carry that load!”

Pierre was also disgusted--by the other’s ignorance and lack of endurance.

“What you don’t know about the woods beats all. Haven’t you seen anybody pack things before? I’ll show you. When there’s big game handy is no time to quarrel. If a pack’s too heavy, halve it. Watch and learn something.”

Pierre could be both swift and dexterous if he chose, and he rapidly unrolled and divided the contents of the cotton tent. Putting part into the blanket, he retied the rest in the sheeting, and now neither bundle was a very severe tax.

“Whew! What’s the sense of that? It’s the same weight. How does ‘halving’ it help?”

Pierre swung the canoe upon his head and directed:

“Catch hold them straps. Carry one a few rods. Drop it. Come back after the other. Carry that a ways beyond the first. Drop it. Get number one. All time lap over, beyond, over, beyond. So.”

With a stick he illustrated upon the ground, and, wasting no further time nor speech, clasped his gun the tighter under his arm and trotted forward again.

Adrian obeyed instructions, and though it seemed, at first, a waste to go back and forth along the carry as he had been directed, found that, in the end, he had accomplished his task with small fatigue or delay.

“Another bit of woodcraft for my knowledge box. Useful elsewhere, too. Wish I could get through this country as fast as Pierre does. But he’ll have to wait for me, anyway.”

For a time Adrian could easily trace the route of his guide by the bruises the canoe had given the leaves and undergrowth; but after a while the forest grew more open and this trail was lost. Then he stopped to consider. He had no intention of losing himself again.

“We are aiming for the south. Good. All the big branches of these hemlocks point that way--so yonder’s my way. Queer, too, how mossy the tree trunks are on the north side. I’ve heard that you could drop an Indian anywhere, in any forest, and he’d travel to either point of the compass he desired with nothing to guide him but his instinct. Wish I was an Indian! Wish, rather, I had my own compass and good outfit that went over in my canoe. Hurrah! There’s a glimmer of water. That’s the thoroughfare. Now a dash for it!”

Adrian was proud of his new skill in finding his way through a trackless forest, but, though he duly reached the stream, he could not for a time see anything of Pierre. He did not wish to shout, lest the moose might be near and take fright, but at last he did give a faint halloo, and an answer came at once. Then a boat shot out from behind a clump of alders and made down the river toward him.

The current was swift and strong, and there was considerable poling to be done before it touched the shore and Pierre stepped out.

“I’ve been looking round. This is as good a place to camp to-night as we’ll find. Leave the things here, and might as well get ready now. Then we can stay out all day and come back when we like.”

“But I thought we were to go on up thoroughfare. Why stop here at all? Other camping places are easy to find.”

“Are they? Ask a few more questions. Good many things go to making right sort of camp. Dry ground, good water to drink, firewood, poles--Oh! shucks! If you don’t know, keep still and learn.”

This was excellent advice, and Adrian was tired. He decided to trust to the other lad’s common sense and larger experience, and, having so decided, calmly stretched himself out upon the level bank of the stream and went to sleep.

Pierre’s temper rose still higher, and after he had endured the sight of Adrian’s indolence as long as possible he stepped to the river and dipped a bucket of water. Then he returned and quietly dashed it over the drowsy lad. The effect was all that Pierre desired.

“What did you do that for?”

“Take this axe and get to work. I’ve chopped long enough. It’s my turn--or would be, only I’m after moose.”

Adrian realized that he had given cause for offense and laughed good-naturedly. His nap had rested him much more than his broken sleep of the night under the rocks, and the word “moose” had an inspiration all its own.

“I’ve cut the firewood. You get poles for the tent. I’ll get things ready for supper.”

Adrian laid his hand dramatically upon his stomach. “I’ve an inner conviction already that dinner precedes supper.”

“Cut, can’t you?”

“Cut it is.”

In a few moments he had chopped down a few slender poles, and, selecting two with forked branches, he planted these upright on a little rise of the dryest ground. Across the notches he laid a third pole, and over this he stretched their strip of sheeting. When this was pegged down at a convenient angle at the back and also secured at the ends, they had a very comfortable shelter from the dew and possible rain. The affair was open on one side, and before this Pierre had heaped the wood for the fire when they should return after the day’s hunt. Together they cut and spread the spruce and hemlock boughs for their bed, arranging them in overlapping rows, with an added quantity for pillows. Wrapped in their blankets, for even at midsummer these were not amiss, they hoped to sleep luxuriously.

They stored their food in as safe a spot as possible, though Pierre said that nothing would molest it, unless it might be a hungry hedgehog; but Adrian preferred to take no risks. Then, with knives freshly sharpened on the rocks, and the gun in hand, they cautiously stepped into the canoe and pushed off.

“One should not jump into a birch. Easiest thing in the world to split the bottom,” its owner had explained.

Adrian had no desire to do anything that would hinder their success, therefore submitted to his guide’s dictation with a meekness that would have amused Margot.

She would not have been amused by their undertaking, nor its but half-anticipated results. After a long and difficult warping-up the rapids, in which Adrian’s skill at using the sharp-pointed pole that helped to keep the canoe off the rocks surprised Pierre, they reached a dead water, with low, rush-dotted banks.

“Get her into that cove yonder and keep still. I’ve brought some bark and I’ll make a horn.”

There, while they rested and listened, Pierre deftly rolled his strip of birch bark into a horn of two feet in length, small at the mouth end, but several inches wide at the other. He tied it with cedar thongs, and, putting it to his lips, uttered a call so like a cow moose that Adrian wondered more and more.

“Hm-m! I thought I was pretty smart, myself; but I’ll step down when you take the stand.”

“Sh-h-h! Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t breathe if you can help it.”

Adrian became rigid, all his faculties merged in that one desire to lose no sound.

Again Pierre gave the moose call, and--hark! what was that? An answering cry, a far-away crashing of boughs, the onrush of some big creature, hastening to its mate.

Noiselessly Pierre brought his gun into position, sighting one distant point from which he thought his prey would come. Adrian’s body dripped with a cold sweat, his hands trembled, specks floated before his staring eyes, every nerve was tense, and, as Margot would have said, he was a-thrill “with murder,” from head to foot! Oh! if the gun were his, and the shot!

Another call, another cry, and a magnificent head came into view. With horns erect and quivering nostrils, the monarch of that wilderness came, seeking love, and faced his enemies.

“He’s within range--shoot!” whispered Adrian.

“Only mad him that way. Sh! When he turns--”

“Bang! bang! bang!” in swift succession.

The great horns tossed, the noble head came round again, then bent, wavered, and disappeared. The tragedy was over.

“I got him! I got him that time! Always shoot that way, never--”

Pierre picked up his paddle and sent the canoe forward at a leap. When there came no responding movement from his companion he looked back over his shoulder. Adrian’s face had gone white, and the eagerness of his eyes had given place to unspeakable regret.

“What’s the matter? Sick?”

“Yes. Why, it was murder! Margot was right.”

“Oh, shucks!”

Whereupon Pierre pulled the faster toward the body of his victim.