Around the Camp-fire

“But the expression of his small eye and mighty jaw, which certainly belied his true character, was bloodthirsty to the last degree; and his white coat was disfigured with a tangle of long scars which looked as if the business of his life were brawls. As I afterwards learned, those scars were the ornament of a hero, no less to be honored than if his great heart had throbbed in a human body.

“It was one night in camp at the head of the Big Chiputneticook that I heard how those scars were achieved. Tent was pitched on a bit of dry interval which fringed the base of a high rock, a well-known landmark to trappers, and distinguished by the name of ‘The Devil’s Pulpit.’ The rock towered over us, naked and perpendicular, for a distance of two hundred feet, then shelved, and rose again some hundreds of feet farther to a beetling cap of mingled rock and forest.

“Our camp was flanked on each side by a thicket of cherry and vines and young water-ash, and the light of our fire filled the space between with the comfort of its cheerful radiance. In the midst of this we lay basking, each waiting for the other to begin a yarn; but no one seemed prepared.

“We had been out ten days in the wilderness; and night after night our occupation had been this one of ‘swapping’ experiences, till I had found myself compelled to fall back on my inventive faculty, and our Indian, Steve, who was communicative beyond the custom of his people, had begun to repeat himself in his stories.

“As for H – , he never spun a yarn save under some strong compulsion, yet we knew more or less vaguely that many a strange experience had fallen to his lot. We had had some stirring adventures together, he and I, since first I had initiated him into the mysteries of woodcraft. But it was rare for him to recall them in conversation, and hence I judged that there was much in his experience of which I had never heard.

“On the present occasion the long silence was becoming almost drowsy. For me the flame from our logs was beginning to change mistily into the glow from a heaped-up grate, and to play over two small curly heads and a long-eared pup on a hearth-rug, when suddenly from far up in the moonlit rocks of the summit came the wail of the northern panther.

“I was startled wide-awake; and the little vision faded instantly into a consciousness of the open heaven, the white lake, and that lonely, haunted summit.

“But it was not altogether the panther that had startled me. It was Dan, who had sprung almost over my head toward the hillside, and now stood trembling with wrath.

“At the command of his master he stalked back and sat down again; but he faced the hillside, and never withdrew his fierce gaze from the spot whence the sound had seemed to come.

“‘Never mind him, old dog,’ said H – soothingly; ‘you can’t get at him, you know.’

“‘What makes Dan so excited?’ I asked. ‘I never saw him so much worked up before. See, he’s fairly quivering!’

“‘Oh,’ replied H – , ‘there’s no love lost between Dan and the Indian devils. That yelling stirs up some lively reminiscences in his old pate. He thinks that Indian devil is coming right down here to tackle me. See how he keeps me in his eye! And see him turn his muzzle round now and then to lick those scars of his. I’ll venture to say he feels them smart now, when he remembers the night he got them at the head of the Little Tobique.’

“‘Let’s have it, old man,’ I urged. ‘You’ve never told me about that scrape. I’ve been taking those scars as a certificate of Dan’s fighting propensities.’

“‘Do you suppose any dog,’ said H – in a tone of disdain, ‘could carve Dan up in that style? Not by a good deal! It was a big Indian devil that undertook the contract. He accomplished the frescoing in a very elaborate fashion, as you see. But he didn’t survive the job.’

“H – compressed his lips, and added, ‘I can tell you, my dear boy, that was something like an Indian devil, that fellow, and came mighty near settling my claims for me. He measured six feet from tip of nose to tip of tail, and you know what a poor sort of thing they all have for a tail. It was Dan saved my life that night.’

“Pete and I settled ourselves more comfortably against our log cushions. Dan, having heard no more yells from the hilltop, and having perceived that the conversation concerned himself, curled himself up with a gratified air, and thrust his great head into his master’s lap.

“‘You remember,’ resumed H – , ‘last year I went to the Tobique all by myself, except for Dan’s company. I was gone six weeks and more. When I got back to Fredericton you were off up Quebec way, and so I never happened to tell you about the trip.

“‘Well, I had the best fishing you can conceive of. It was far better than any we’ve ever had together in those streams. But as for the panthers, I never heard anything like them. They used to howl round the woods at night in a frightful way.

“‘Dan used to keep awake all night, watching for them. But they never ventured near the camp. They didn’t disturb me; but if I had not had Dan with me I might have felt a little shaky, perhaps, at night. I had rather a contempt for the brutes at that time, but they were not much help to a fellow when he was feeling lonely.

“‘You know that pretty cove on the right shore of the Little Tobique, about a hundred yards from where the brook flows in? On that patch of open just on top of the bank I pitched my tent. By the time the camp was fixed, and the fish fried for supper, it was getting pretty well past sundown. It was a gorgeous moonlight night, as bright as day. There wasn’t a mosquito about. I tell you I felt pretty nice as I lifted the pink flakes of fried trout onto my plate, and fixed a dish for Dan.

“‘I was getting out the hardtack, when I saw a whopping big trout jump, just by the mouth of the brook. It was bigger than any I had caught so far, and I could not bear to lose the chance of taking him while he was feeding.

“‘I set down my plate, telling Dan to watch it, seized my rod, tied on a cast of white and gray millers, and struck hurriedly through the bushes toward the other side of the cove, where I thought I could get a fair cast.

“‘You know what sort of a place that shore is, – all banks and bowlders, and thickets and little gullies; and some of those gullies are hidden by fallen trees, or grown over with weeds and vines. You have to keep your eyes open, or you are liable to tumble into these pitfalls. I was in a hurry, and plunged right ahead. I wanted to catch that trout and get back to my supper.

“‘At last, about sixty or seventy yards from the camp, I dodged round a thick fir-bush, and saw right in front of me something that brought me up mighty short, I can tell you.

“‘Not ten feet away, crouched along the top of a white bowlder, lay a huge Indian devil just ready to spring.

“‘I felt queer right down to my boots, but kept my eyes fixed on those of the brute, which gleamed like two emeralds in the moonlight. My right hand reached for my belt, and I stealthily drew my old sheath-knife. At the same time I whistled sharply for Dan.

“‘The brute was on the very point of springing when I whistled; but the shrill sound startled him, and deterred him for a moment. He glanced uneasily from side to side, half rising. Then he drew himself together again for his spring.

“‘Before he could launch himself forth, I hurled the butt of my fishing-rod full in his face, and sprang aside. I saw the long body flash toward me, and at the same instant I crashed through a tangle of underbrush, and sank into one of those gullies.

“‘Instinctively I threw out my left arm to save myself. My grasp caught a tree-root on the edge of the hole. The next instant I felt the panther’s teeth sink into my arm. I didn’t know how deep that hole was, but I wanted to be at the bottom of it right away.

“‘At the risk of stabbing myself, I slashed desperately above my head with my free right hand. It was not a breath too soon; for at that very instant the brute had reached down with the amiable intention of clawing my head. The knife went through his paw, which he snatched back, snarling fiercely. But he kept his grip on my arm.

“‘Then I heard Dan come tearing through the brush. I lunged again, blindly of course; and this time the blade went through the panther’s jaw and into my own flesh. The brute let go; and I rolled to the foot of the gully, a distance of some five or six feet. Even as I fell I heard Dan’s vindictive cough as he sank his teeth into his adversary’s throat. There was a mad snarl from the big cat, a struggle – and the two rolled down on top of me.

“‘I got out of the way in a great hurry. At first it was too dark down there to distinguish the combatants. In a moment, however, my eyes got used to the gloom. The two animals were almost inextricably mixed up. Dan’s grip was right under the panther’s jaw, so that he could not make any use of his teeth. The wary old dog had drawn himself up into a tight ball, so as to expose as little of himself as possible to the attack of his enemy’s claws. But his back and haunches were getting terribly mangled.

“‘Dan fought in silence; but the Indian devil made noise enough for both, and the yelling down in that little hole was fiendish. I felt my left arm, and found it was not broken. Then I sprang on the Indian devil, seized him by the tail, and tried to jerk his hind legs clear of Dan.

“‘His back was bowed up into a half-circle, and there was no unbending that arch of steel.

“‘I dug the knife twice into his side, and he paid no attention to it, so absorbed was he in the life-and-death struggle with Dan. If left to themselves I saw that the fight would end with the death of both. Dan was inexorably working through the throat of his foe, but was in a fair way to be torn to pieces before he could get this accomplished.

“‘I threw myself on the panther’s hindquarters, twining my left arm around his supple loins, and with my right hand I reached for his heart.

“‘See the length of this blade? I drove it in to the hilt three times behind that brute’s fore shoulder before I fetched him. Then he straightened out and fell over.

“‘It was some time before I could persuade Dan to drop him. The poor old fellow was so torn he could hardly walk. I picked him up in my arms, – though it’s no joke to carry a dog of his weight, – and lugged him back to the camp.

“‘We were a sight to see when we got there, a mass of blood from head to foot.

“‘I stayed at that camp four days, nursing Dan and myself, before we were able to start for home; and then we had to go, for fear we’d be starved out. I thanked my stars and your old-time injunctions that I had taken the little medicine-case along with me. It might have gone hard with us but for that.’

“As H – concluded, Pete grunted in astonishment and admiration. Indeed, these expressive grunts of his had furnished a running fire of comment throughout the narrative. For myself, I fetched a deep breath, got up, and went over to embrace Dan. As I rose, I cast my eyes up the mountain, and exclaimed, – .

“‘Talk of angels and you’ll see their wings, eh? Look there!’ H – and Pete followed my gaze. Far up, in the whiteness of the moonlight, we saw a stealthy form creep across a surface of bare rock. Dan saw it too, and every muscle became rigid.

“The form disappeared in a thick covert, and a moment later there issued again upon the stillness that strange, blood-curdling cry. It sounded like a challenge to the hero of H – ’s story.

“But the challenge went unheeded. H – ordered Dan into the tent. In a few minutes we were wrapped in our blankets, and the panthers had the wilderness all to themselves.”

“What became of Dan at last?” inquired Sam.

“Poisoned three years ago; but I made the brutes that did it smart for it!” said I, shutting my teeth with a snap.

“Hanging would have been none too bad for them!” growled Stranion. From this the talk wandered to dogs in general; and each man, of course, sang the praises of his own, till presently Stranion cried, “Douse the glim!” and we rolled into our blankets.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CAMP ON THE TOLEDI

In the morning we set out at a reasonable hour, planning to camp that night at the foot of Toledi Lake. The last few miles of the Squatook River were easy paddling, save that here and there a fallen tree was in the way. In passing these obstructions Stranion proved unlucky. His canoe led the procession, with himself standing erect, alert, pole in hand, in the stern, while Queerman sat lazily in the bow. At length we saw ahead of us a tree-trunk stretching across the channel. By ducking our heads down to the gunwales there was room to pass under it. But Stranion tried a piece of gymnastics, like a circus-rider jumping through a hoop. He attempted to step over the trunk while the canoe was passing under it. In this he partly succeeded. He got one foot over, according to calculation, and landed it safely in the canoe. But as for the other – well, a malicious little projecting branch took hold of it by the moccasin, and held on with the innate pertinacity of inanimate things. The canoe wouldn’t wait, so Stranion remained behind with his captive foot. He dropped head-first into the water, whence we rescued him.

The next time we came to an obstruction of this kind Stranion didn’t try to step over it. He stooped to go under it. But another malicious branch now came to the front. The branch was long, strong, and sharp. It reached down, seized the back of Stranion’s shirt, and almost dragged him out of the canoe. Failing in this, – for Stranion’s blood was up, – it ripped the shirt open, and ploughed a long red furrow down his back. It took an ocean of glycerine and arnica to assuage that wound.

On the upper Toledi we found a brisk wind blowing. Hoisting improvised sails, we sped down the lake without labor. On the lower lake (the two sheets of water are separated only by a short “thoroughfare”) the wind failed us, and we had to resume our paddling. It was late in a golden, hazy afternoon when we drew near the outlet.

Here we overhauled an ancient Indian who had been visiting his traps up the lake. We recognized him as one “Old Martin,” a well-known hunter and trapper. He was plying his paddle with philosophic deliberation in the stern of the most dilapidated old canoe I have ever seen afloat. His salutation to us was a grunt; but when we invited him to camp near us and have a bit of supper with us he, quickly became more civil.

Round the camp-fire that night, with a good supper comforting his stomach, Old Martin forgot the red man’s taciturnity. Sam was busy frying tobacco, while the rest of us lounged about in the glow, testing the results of these culinary experiments. It will be remembered that when the upset took place at Squatook Falls, our tobacco was almost all shut up in a certain tin box which we fondly fancied to be water-proof. When the little store in the other canoes was exhausted, we turned to this tin box. Alas, that box was just so far water-proof as to let in the water and keep it from running out! We found a truly delectable mess inside. Sam had undertaken to dry this mess, out of which all the benign quality was pretty well steeped. He pressed it therefore, and rolled it tenderly, and spread it out in the frying-pan over a gentle fire, until it was quite dry. But oh, it was not good to smoke! Keeping a little to trifle with, we bestowed all the rest of it upon the poor Indian, whose untutored mind led him to accept it gratefully. Perchance he threw it away when our backs were turned.

Suddenly Sam’s task was interrupted by a wailing, desolate, and terrible cry, coming apparently from the shores of the upper lake. We gazed at each other with wide eyes, and instinctively drew nearer the fire; while Sam cried, “Ugh, what’s that? it must be Cerberus himself got loose!” Old Martin grunted, “Gluskâp’s hunting-dog! Big storm bime-by, mebbe!” He looked awed, but not afraid. He said it would not come near us. It was heard sometimes in the night and far off, as now, but no man of the present days had ever seen the dog. It ranged up and down throughout these regions, howling for its master, whom now it would never find. For Gluskâp had been struck down in a deep valley north of the St. Lawrence, and a mountain placed upon him, so that neither could he stir nor anybody find him. So Martin explained that grim sound.

We learned afterwards that the cry was one of the rarer utterances of the loon; but had any one told us so that night we would not have believed him. We preferred to accept the weird notion of the faithful phantom hound seeking forever his vanished master, the beneficent Indian demigod.

About the time supper was done the weather had changed. While Sam was frying his tobacco, the soft summery sweetness fled from the air, and a cold wind set in, blowing down out of the north. It was a strange and unseasonable wind, and pierced our bones. We heaped the camp-fire to a threefold height, and huddled in our blankets between the blaze and the lee of the tent. Then Stranion was called on for a story.

TRACKED BY A PANTHER

“Boys,” said he, “the air bites shrewdly. It is a nipping and an eager air. In fact, it puts me forcibly in mind of one of my best adventures, which befell me that winter when I was trapping on the Little Sou’west Miramichi.”

“Oh, come! Tell us a good summer story, old man,” interrupted Queerman. “I’m half-frozen as it is, to-night. Tell us about some place down in the tropics where they have to cool their porridge with boiling water.”

“Nay,” replied Stranion; “my thoughts are wintry, and even so must my story be.”

He traced in the air a few meditative circles with his pipe (which he rarely smoked, using it rather for oratorical effect), and then resumed: —

“That was a hard winter of mine on the Little Sou’west. I enjoyed it at the time, and it did me good; but, looking back upon it now, I wonder what induced me to undertake it. I got the experience, and I indulged my hobby to the full; but by spring I felt like a barbarian. It is a fine thing, boys, as we all agree, to be an amateur woodsman, and it brings a fellow very close to nature; but it is much more sport in summer than in winter, and it’s better when one has good company than when he’s no one to talk to but a preternaturally gloomy Melicite.

“I had Noël with me that winter, – a good hunter and true, but about as companionable as a mud-turtle. Our traps were set in two great circuits, one on the south side of the stream, the other on the north. The range to the north was in my own charge, and a very big charge it was. When I had any sort of luck, it used to take me a day and a half to make the round; for I had seventeen traps to tend, spread out over a range of about twenty miles. But when the traps were not well filled, I used to do it without sleeping away from camp. It’s not much like play, I can tell you, tramping all day on snow-shoes through those woods, carrying an axe, a fowling-piece, food, ammunition, and sometimes a pack of furs. Whenever I had to sleep out, I would dig a big oblong hole in the snow, build a roaring fire at one end of the hole, bury myself in hemlock boughs at the other end, and snooze like a dormouse till morning. I relied implicitly on the fire to keep off any bears or Indian devils that might be feeling inquisitive as to whether I would be good eating.

“The snow must have been fully six feet deep that year. One morning near the last of February I had set out on my round, and had made some three miles from our shanty, when I caught sight of a covey of partridges in the distance, and turned out of my way to get a shot at them. It had occurred to me that perchance a brace of them might make savory morsels for my supper. After a considerable détour, I bagged my birds, and recovered my trail near the last trap I had visited. My tracks, as I had left them, had been solitary enough; but now I found they were accompanied by the footprints of a large Indian devil.

“I didn’t really expect to get a shot at the beast, but I loaded both barrels with ball-cartridges. As I went on, however, it began to strike me as strange that the brute should happen to be going so far in my direction. Step for step his footprints clung to mine. When I reached the place where I had branched off in search of the partridges, I found that the panther had branched off with me. So polite a conformity of his ways to mine could have but one significance. I was being tracked!

“The idea, when it first struck me, struck me with too much force to be agreeable. It was a very unusual proceeding on the part of an Indian devil, displaying a most imperfect conception of the fitness of things. That I should hunt him was proper and customary, but that he should think of hunting me was presumptuous and most unpleasant. I resolved that he should be made to repent it before night.

“The traps were unusually successful that trip, and at last I had to stop and make a cache of my spoils. This unusual delay seemed to mislead my wily pursuer, who suddenly came out of a thicket while I was hidden behind a tree-trunk. As he crept stealthily along on my tracks, not fifty yards away, I was disgusted at his sleuth-hound persistence and crafty malignity. I raised my gun to my shoulder, and in another moment would have rid myself of his undesired attentions, but the animal must have caught a gleam from the shining barrels, for he turned like a flash, and buried himself in the nearest thicket.

“It was evident that he did not wish the matter forced to an immediate issue. As a consequence, I decided that it ought to be settled at once. I ran toward the thicket; but at the same time the panther stole out on the other side, and disappeared in the woods.

“Upon this I concluded that he had become scared, and given up his unhallowed purpose. For some hours I dismissed him from my mind, and tended my traps without further apprehension. But about the middle of the afternoon, or a little later, when I had reached the farthest point on my circuit, I once more became impressed with a sense that I was being followed. The impression grew so strong that it weighed upon me, and I determined to bring it to a test. Taking some luncheon from my pocket, I sat down behind a tree to nibble and wait. I suppose I must have sat there ten minutes, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, so that I was about to give it up, and continue my tramp, when – along came the panther! My gun was levelled instantly, but at that same instant the brute had disappeared. His eyes were sharper than mine. ‘Ah!’ said I to myself, ‘I shall have to keep a big fire going to-night, or this fellow will pay me a call when I am snoring!’”

“Oh, surely not!” murmured Queerman pensively. The rest of us laughed; but Stranion only waved his pipe with a gesture that commanded silence, and went on: —

“About sundown I met with an unlucky accident, which dampened both my spirits and my powder. In crossing a swift brook, at a place where the ice was hardly thick enough to hold up its covering of snow, I broke through and was soaked. After fishing myself out with some difficulty, I found my gun was full of water which had frozen as it entered. Here was a pretty fix! The weapon was for the present utterly useless. I feared that most of my cartridges were in like condition. The prospect for the night, when the Indian devil should arrive upon the scene, was not a cheerful one. I pushed on miserably for another mile or so, and then prepared to camp.

“First of all, I built such a fire as I thought would impress upon the Indian devil a due sense of my importance and my mysterious powers. At a safe distance from the fire I spread out my cartridges to dry, in the fervent hope that the water had not penetrated far enough to render them useless. My gun I put where it would thaw as quickly as possible.

“Then I cut enough firewood to blaze all night. With my snow-shoes I dug a deep hollow at one side of the fire. The fire soon melted the snow beneath it, and brought it down to the level whereon I was to place my couch. I may say that the ground I had selected was a gentle slope, and the fire was below my bed, so that the melting snow could run off freely. Over my head I fixed a good, firm ‘lean-to’ of spruce saplings, thickly thatched with boughs. Thus I secured myself in such a way that the Indian devil could come at me only from the side on which the fire was burning. Such approach, I congratulated myself, would be little to his Catship’s taste.