Rolf In The Woods

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Rolf got more and more worried. He was a brave boy, but grim fear
came into his mind as he realized that he was too far from camp
to be heard; the ground was too leafy for trailing him; without
help he could not get away from that awful spring. His head began
to swim, when all at once he remembered a bit of advice his guide
had given him long ago: "Don't get scared when you're lost.
Hunger don't kill the lost man, and it ain't cold that does it;
it's being afraid. Don't be afraid, and everything will come out
all right."

So, instead of running, Rolf sat down to think it over.

"Now," said he, "I went due southeast all day from the canoe."
Then he stopped; like a shock it came to him that he had not seen
the sun all day. Had he really gone southeast? It was a
devastating thought, enough to unhinge some men; but again Rolf
said to himself "Never mind, now; don't get scared, and it'll be
all right. In the morning the sky will be clear."

As he sat pondering, a red squirrel chippered and scolded from a
near tree; closer and closer the impudent creature came to
sputter at the intruder.

Rolf drew his bow, and when the blunt arrow dropped to the
ground, there also dropped the red squirrel, turned into
acceptable meat. Rolf put this small game into his pocket,
realizing that this was his supper.

It would soon be dark now, so he prepared to spend the night.

While yet he could see, he gathered a pile of dry wood into a
sheltered hollow. Then he made a wind-break and a bed of balsam
boughs. Flint, steel, tinder, and birch bark soon created a
cheerful fire, and there is no better comforter that the lone
lost man can command.

The squirrel roasted in its hide proved a passable supper, and
Rolf curled up to sleep. The night would have been pleasant and
uneventful, but that it turned chilly, and when the fire burnt
low, the cold awakened him, so he had a succession of naps and
fire-buildings.

Soon after dawn, he heard a tremendous roaring, and in a few
minutes the wood was filled again with pigeons.

Rolf was living on the country now, so he sallied forth with his
bow. Luck was with him; at the first shot he downed a big, fat
cock. At the second he winged another, and as it scrambled
through the brush, he rushed headlong in pursuit. It fluttered
away beyond reach, halfflying, half-running, and Rolf, in
reckless pursuit, went sliding and tumbling down a bank to land
at the bottom with a horrid jar. One leg was twisted under him;
he thought it was broken, for there was a fearful pain in the
lower part. But when he pulled himself together he found no
broken bones, indeed, but an ankle badly sprained. Now his
situation was truly grave, for he was crippled and incapable of
travelling.

He had secured the second bird, and crawling painfully and slowly
back to the fire, he could not but feel more and more despondent
and gloomy as the measure of his misfortune was realized.

"There is only one thing that can shame a man, that is to be
afraid." And again, "There's always a way out." These were the
sayings that came ringing through his head to his heart; one was
from Quonab, the other from old Sylvanne. Yes, there's always a
way, and the stout heart can always find it.

Rolf prepared and cooked the two birds, made a breakfast of one
and put the other in his pocket for lunch, not realizing at the
time that his lunch would be eaten on this same spot. More than
once, as he sat, small flocks of ducks flew over the trees due
northward. At length the sky, now clear, was ablaze with the
rising sun, and when it came, it was in Rolf's western sky.

Now he comprehended the duck flight. They were really heading
southeast for their feeding grounds on the Indian Lake, and Rolf,
had he been able to tramp, could have followed, but his foot was
growing worse. It was badly swollen, and not likely to be of
service for many a day - perhaps weeks -- and it took all of his
fortitude not to lie down and weep over this last misfortune.

Again came the figure of that grim, kindly, strong old pioneer,
with the gray-blue eyes and his voice was saying: "Jest when
things looks about as black as they can look, if ye hold steady,
keep cool and kind, something sure happens to make it all easy.
There's always a way and the stout heart will find it."

What way was there for him? He would die of hunger and cold
before Quonab could find him, and again came the spectre of fear.
If only he could devise some way of letting his comrade know. He
shouted once or twice, in the faint hope that the still air might
carry the sound, but the silent wood was silent when he ceased.

Then one of his talks with Quonab came to mind. He remembered how
the Indian, as a little papoose, had been lost for three days.
Though, then but ten years old, he had built a smoke fire that
brought him help. Yes, that was the Indian way; two smokes means
"I am lost"; "double for trouble."

Fired by this new hope, Rolf crawled a little apart from his camp
and built a bright fire, then smothered it with rotten wood and
green leaves. The column of smoke it sent up was densely white
and towered above the trees.

Then painfully he hobbled and crawled to a place one hundred
yards away, and made another smoke. Now all he could do was wait.

A fat pigeon, strayed from its dock, sat on a bough above his
camp, in a way to tempt Providence. Rolf drew a blunt arrow to
the head and speedily had the pigeon in hand for some future meal.

As he prepared it, he noticed that its crop was crammed with the
winged seed of the slippery elm, so he put them all back again
into the body when it was cleaned, knowing well that they are a
delicious food and in this case would furnish a welcome variant
to the bird itself.

An hour crawled by. Rolf had to go out to the far fire, for it
was nearly dead. Instinctively he sought a stout stick to help
him; then remembered how Hoag had managed with one leg and two
crutches. "Ho!" he exclaimed. "That is the answer -- this is the
'way."'

Now his attention was fixed on all the possible crutches. The
trees seemed full of them, but all at impossible heights. It was
long before he found one that he could cut with his knife.
Certainly he was an hour working at it; then he heard a sound
that made his blood jump.

From far away in the north it came, faint but reaching;

"Ye-hoo-o."

Rolf dropped his knife and listened with the instinctively open
mouth that takes all pressure from the eardrums and makes them
keen. It came again: " Ye-hoo-o." No mistake now, and Rolf sent
the ringing answer back:

"Ye-hoo-o, ye-hoo-o."

In ten minutes there was a sharp " yap, yap," and Skookum bounded
out of the woods to leap and bark around Rolf, as though he knew
all about it; while a few minutes later, came Quonab striding.

"Ho, boy," he said, with a quiet smile, and took Rolf's hand.
"Ugh! That was good," and he nodded to the smoke fire. "I knew
you were in trouble."

"Yes," and Rolf pointed to the swollen ankle.

The Indian picked up the lad in his arms and carried him back to
the little camp. Then, from his light pack, he took bread and tea
and made a meal for both. And, as they ate, each heard the
other's tale.

"I was troubled when you did not come back last night, for you
had no food or blanket. I did not sleep. At dawn I went to the
hill, where I pray, and looked away southeast where you went in
the canoe. I saw nothing. Then I went to a higher hill, where I
could see the northeast, and even while I watched, I saw the two
smokes, so I knew my son was alive."

"You mean to tell me I am northeast of camp? "

"About four miles. I did not come very quickly, because I had to
go for the canoe and travel here.

"How do you mean by canoe?" said Rolf, in surprise.

You are only half a mile from Jesup River," was the reply. "I
soon bring you home."

It was incredible at first, but easy of proof. With the hatchet
they made a couple of serviceable crutches and set out together.

In twenty minutes they were afloat in the canoe; in an hour they
were safely home again.

And Rolf pondered it not a little. At the very moment of blackest
despair, the way had opened, and it had been so simple, so natural,
so effectual. Surely, as long as he lived, he would remember itÄ
"There is always a way, and the stout heart will find it."

Marketing the Fur

If Rolf had been at home with his mother, she would have rubbed
his black and swollen ankle with goose grease. The medical man at
Stamford would have rubbed it with a carefully prepared and
secret ointment. His Indian friend sang a little crooning song
and rubbed it with deer's fat. All different, and all good,
because each did something to reassure the patient, to prove that
big things were doing on his behalf, and each helped the process
of nature by frequent massage.

Three times a day, Quonab rubbed that blackened ankle. The grease
saved the skin from injury, and in a week Rolf had thrown his
crutches away.

The month of May was nearly gone; June was at hand; that is, the
spring was over. !

In all ages, man has had the impulse, if not the habit, of spring
migration. Yielding to it he either migrated or made some radical
change in his life. Most of the Adirondack men who trapped in the
winter sought work on the log drives in spring; some who had
families and a permanent home set about planting potatoes and
plying the fish nets. Rolf and Quonab having neither way open,
yet feeling the impulse, decided to go out to Warren's with the fur.

Quonab wanted tobacco -- and a change.

Rolf wanted a rifle, and to see the Van Trumpers -- and a change.

So June Ist saw them all aboard, with Quonab steering at the
stern, and Skookum bow-wowing at the bow, bound for the great
centre of Warren's settlement -- one store and three houses, very
wide apart.

There was a noble flush of water in the streams, and, thanks to
their axe work in September, they passed down Jesup's River
without a pause, and camped on the Hudson that night, fully
twenty-five miles from home.

Long, stringing flocks of pigeons going north were the most
numerous forms of life. But a porcupine on the bank and a bear in
the water aroused Skookum to a pitch of frightful enthusiasm and
vaulting ambition that he was forced to restrain.

On the evening of the third day they landed at Warren's and found
a hearty welcome from the trader, who left a group of loafers and
came forward:

"Good day to ye, boy. My, how ye have growed."

So he had. Neither Rolf nor Quonab had remarked it, but now they
were much of the same height. "Wall, an' how'd ye make out with
yer hunt? -- Ah, that's fine!" as each of them dropped a fur pack
on the counter. "Wall, this is fine; we must have a drink on the
head of it," and the trader was somewhat nonplussed when both the
trappers refused. He was disappointed, too, for that refusal
meant that they would get much better prices for their fun But he
concealed his chagrin and rattled on: "I reckon I'll sell you the
finest rifle in the country this time, "and he knew by Rolf's
face that there was business to do in that line.

Now came the listing of the fur, and naturally the bargaining was
between the shrewd Yankee boy and the trader. The Indian stood
shyly aside, but he did not fail to help with significant grunts
and glances.

"There, now," said Warren, as the row of martens were laid out
side by side, " thirty martens -- a leetle pale -- worth three
dollars and fifty cents each, or, to be generous, we'll say four
dollars." Rolf glanced at Quonab, who, unseen by the trader shook
his head, held his right hand out, open hollow up, then raised it
with a jerk for two inches.

Quickly Rolf caught the idea and said; "No, I don't reckon them
pale. I call them prime dark, every one of them." Quonab spread
his hand with all five fingers pointed up, and Rolf continued,
"They are worth five dollars each, if they're worth a copper."

"Phew!" said the trader. "you forget fur is an awful risky thing;
what with mildew, moth, mice, and markets, we have a lot of risk.
But I want to please you, so let her go; five each. There's a
fine black fox; that's worth forty dollars."

"I should think it is," said Rolf, as Quonab, by throwing to his
right an imaginary pinch of sand, made the sign "refuse."

They had talked over the value of that fox skin and Rolf said,
"Why, I know of a black fox that sold for two hundred dollars."

"Where?"

"Oh, down at Stamford."

"Why, that's near New York."

"Of course; don't you send your fur to New York?"

"Yes, but it costs a lot to get it there.

"Now," said Warren, "if you'll take it in trade, I'll meet you
half-way and call it one hundred dollars."

"Make it one hundred and twenty-five dollars and I'll take a
rifle, anyway."

"Phew!" whistled the trader. "Where do ye get such notions? "

"Nothing wrong about the notion; old Si Sylvanne offered me
pretty near that, if I'd come out his way with the stuff."

This had the desired effect of showing that there were other
traders. At last the deal was closed. Besides the fox skin, they
had three hundred dollars' worth of fur. The exchange for the fox
skin was enough to buy all the groceries and dry goods they
needed. But Rolf had something else in mind.

He had picked out some packages of candies, some calico prints
and certain bright ribbons, when the trader grasped the idea. "I
see; yer goin' visitin'. Who is it? Must be the Van Trumpers! "

Rolf nodded and now he got some very intelligent guidance. He did
not buy Annette's dress, because part of her joy was to be the
expedition in person to pick it out; but he stocked up with some
gorgeous pieces of jewellery that were ten cents each, and
ribbons whose colours were as far beyond expression as were the
joys they could create in the backwoods female heart.

Proudly clutching his new rlile, and carrying in his wallet a
memorandum of three hundred dollars for their joint credit, Rolf
felt himself a person of no little impor- tance. As he was
stepping out of the store, the trader said, "Ye didn't run across
Jack Hoag agin, did ye?"

"Did we? Hmph!" and Rolf told briefly of their experience with
that creature.

"Just like him, just like him; served him right; he was a dirty
cuss. But, say; don't you be led into taking your fur out Lyons
Falls way. They're a mean lot in there, and it stands to reason I
can give you better prices, being a hundred miles nearer New
York."

And that lesson was not forgotten. The nearer New York the better
the price; seventy-five dollars at Lyons Falls; one hundred and
twenty-five dollars at Warren's; two hundred dollars at New York.
Rolf pondered long and the idea was one which grew and bore
fruit.

Back at Van Trumper's

Nibowaka" -- Quonab always said "Nibowaka" when he was impressed
with Rolf's astuteness -- "What about the canoe and stuff?"

"I think we better leave all here. Callan will lend us a canoe."
So they shouldered the guns, Rolf clung to his, and tramped
across the portage, reaching Callan's in less than two hours.

"Why, certainly you can have the canoe, but come in and eat
first," was the kindly backwoods greeting. However, Rolf was keen
to push on; they launched the canoe at once and speedily were
flashing their paddles on the lake.

The place looked sweetly familiar as they drew near. The crops in
the fields were fair; the crop of chickens at the barn was good;
and the crop of children about the door was excellent.

"Mein Hemel! mein Hemel! " shouted fat old Hendrik, as they
walked up to the stable door. In a minute he was wringing their
hands and smiling into great red, white, and blue smiles. "Coom
in, coom in, lad. Hi, Marta, here be Rolf and Quonab. Mein Hemel!
mein Hemel! what am I now so happy."

"Where's Annette?" asked Rolf.

"Ach, poor Annette, she fever have a little; not mooch, some,"
and he led over to a corner where on a low cot lay Annette, thin,
pale, and listless.

She smiled faintly, in response, when Rolf stooped and kissed her.

"Why, Annette, I came back to see you. I want to take you over to
Warren's store, so you can pick out that dress. See, I brought
you my first marten and I made this box for you; you must thank
Skookum for the quills on it."

"Poor chile; she bin sick all spring," and Marta used a bunch of
sedge to drive away the flies and mosquitoes that, bass and
treble, hovered around the child.

"What ails her?" asked Rolf anxiously.

"Dot ve do not know," was the reply.

"Maybe there's some one here can tell," and Roll glanced at the Indian.

"Ach, sure! Have I you that not always told all-vays -- eet is so.
All-vays, I want sumpin bad mooch. I prays de good Lord and all-vays,
all-vays, two times now, He it send by next boat. Ach, how I am spoil,"
and the good Dutchman's eyes filled with tears of thankfulness.

Quonab knelt by the sufferer. He felt her hot, dry hand; he
noticed her short, quick breathing, her bright eyes, and the
untouched bowl of mush by her bed.

"Swamp fever," he said. "I bring good medicine." He passed
quietly out into the woods. When he returned, he carried a bundle
of snake-root which he made into tea.

Annette did not wish to touch it, but her mother persuaded her to
take a few sips from a cup held by Rolf.

"Wah! this not good," and Quonab glanced about the close,
fly-infested room. "I must make lodge." He turned up the cover of
the bedding; three or four large, fiat brown things moved slowly
out of the light. "Yes, I make lodge."

It was night now, and all retired; the newcomers to the barn.
They had scarcely entered, when a screaming of poultry gave a
familiar turn to affairs. On running to the spot, it proved not a
mink or coon, but Skookum, up to his old tricks. On the appearance
of his masters, he fled with guilty haste, crouched beneath the post
that he used to be, and soon again was, chained to.

In the morning Quonab set about his lodge, and Rolf said: "I've
got to go to Warren's for sugar." The sugar was part truth and
part blind. As soon as he heard the name swamp fever, Rolf
remembered that, in Redding, Jesuit's bark (known later as
quinine) was the sovereign remedy. He had seen his mother
administer it many times, and, so far as he knew, with uniform
success. Every frontier (or backwoods, it's the same) trader
carries a stock of medicine, and in two hours Rolf left Warren's
counter with twenty-five pounds of maple sugar and a bottle of
quinine extract in his pack.

"You say she's bothered with the flies; why don't you take some
of this new stuff for a curtain? " and the trader held up a web
of mosquito gauze, the first Rolf had seen. That surely was a
good idea, and ten yards snipped off was a most interesting
addition to his pack. The amount was charged against him, and in
two hours more he was back at Van Trumper's.

On the cool side of the house, Quonab had built a little lodge,
using a sheet for cover. On a low bed of pine boughs lay the
child. Near the door was a smouldering fire of cedar, whose
aromatic fumes on the lazy wind reached every cranny of the lodge.

Sitting by the bed head, with a chicken wing to keep off the few
mosquitoes, was the Indian. The child's eyes were closed; she was
sleeping peacefully. Rolf crept gently forward, laid his hand on
hers, it was cool and moist. He went into the house with his
purchases; the mother greeted him with a happy look: Yes, Annette
was a little better; she had slept quietly ever since she was
taken outdoors. The mother could not understand. Why should the
Indian want to have her surrounded by pine boughs? why
cedar-smoke? and why that queer song? Yes, there it was again.
Rolf went out to see and hear. Softly summing on a tin pan, with
a mudded stick, the Indian sang a song. The words which Rolf
learned in the after- time were:

"Come, Kaluskap, drive the witches; Those who came to harm the
dear one."

Annette moved not, but softly breathed, as she slept a sweet,
restful slumber, the first for many days.

"Vouldn't she be better in de house?" whispered the anxious mother.

"No, let Quonab do his own way," and Rolf wondered if any white
man had sat by little Wee-wees to brush away the flies from his
last bed.

Annette's New Dress

Deep feelin's ain't any count by themselves; work 'em off, an'
ye're somebody; weep 'em off an' you'd be more use with a heart
o' stone -- Sayings of Si Sylvanne.

Quonab, I am going out to get her a partridge." "Ugh, good."

So Rolf went off. For a moment he was inclined to grant Skookom's
prayer for leave to, follow, but another and better plan came in
mind. Skookum would most likely find a mother partridge, which
none should kill in June, and there was a simple way to find a
cock; that was, listen. It was now the evening calm, and before
Rolf had gone half a mile he heard the distant "Thump, thump,
thump, thump -- rrrrrrr" of a partridge, drumming. He went
quickly and cautiously toward the place, then waited for the next
drumming. It was slow in coming, so he knelt down by a mossy,
rotten log, and struck it with his hands to imitate the thump and
roll of the partridge. At once this challenge procured response.

"Thump -- thump -- thump,, thump rrrrrrrrrrrr" it came, with
martial swing and fervour, and crawling nearer,

Rolf spied the drummer, pompously strutting up and down a log
some forty yards away. He took steady aim, not for the head -- a
strange gun, at forty yards -- for the body. At the crack, the
bird fell dead, and in Rolf's heart there swelled up a little
gush of joy, which he believed was all for the sake of the
invalid, but which a finer analysis might have proved to be due
quite as much to pride in himself and his newly bought gun.

Night was coming on when he got back, and he found the Dutch
parents in some excitement. "Dot Indian he gay no bring Annette
indoors for de night. How she sleep outdoors -- like dog -- like
Bigger -- like tramp? Yah it is bad, ain't it?" and poor old
Hendrik looked sadly upset and mystified.

"Hendrik, do you suppose God turns out worse air in the night
than in the day?"

"Ach, dunno."

"Well, you see Quonab knows what he's doing."

"Yah."

"Well, let him do it. He or I'll sleep alongside the child she'll
be all right," and Rolf thought of those horrible brown crawlers
under the bedding indoors.

Rolf had much confidence in the Indian as a doctor, but he had
more in his own mother. He was determined to give Annette the
quinine, yet he hesitated to interfere. At length, he said: "It
is cool enough now; I will put these thin curtains round her
bed."

"Ugh, good!" but the red man sat there while it was being done.

"You need not stay now; I'll watch her, Quonab."

"Soon, give more medicine," was the reply that Rolf did not want.
So he changed his ruse. "I wish you'd take that partridge and
make soup of it. I've had my hands in poison ivy, so I dare not
touch it."

"Ach, dot shall I do. Dot kin myself do," and the fat mother,
laying the recent baby in its cradle, made cumbrous haste to cook
the bird.

"Foiled again," was Rolf's thought, but his Yankee wit was with
him. He laid one hand on the bowl of snake-root tea. It was
lukewarm. "Do you give it hot or cold, Quonab?"

"Hot."

"I'll take it in and heat it." He carried it off, thinking, "If
Quonab won't let me give the bark extract, I'll make him give
it." In the gloom of the kitchen he had no difficulty in adding
to the tea, quite unseen, a quarter of the extract; when heated,
he brought it again, and the Indian himself gave the dose.

As bedtime drew near, and she heard the red man say he would
sleep there, the little one said feebly, "Mother, mother," then
whispered in her mother's ear, "I want Rolf."

Rolf spread his blanket by the cot and slept lightly. Once or
twice he rose to look at Annette. She was moving in her sleep,
but did not awake. He saw to it that the mosquito bar was in
place, and slept till morning.

There was no question that the child was better. The renewed
interest in food was the first good symptom, and the partridge
served the end of its creation. The snakeroot and the quinine
did noble work, and thenceforth her recovery was rapid. It was
natural for her mother to wish the child back indoors. It was a
matter of course that she should go. It was accepted as an
unavoidable evil that they should always have those brown
crawlers about the bed.

But Rolf felt differently. He knew what his mother would have
thought and done. It meant another visit to Warren's, and the
remedy he brought was a strong-smelling oil, called in those days
"rock oil" -- a crude petroleum. When all cracks in the bed and
near wall were treated with this, it greatly mitigated, if it did
not quite end, the nuisance of the "plague that walks in the
dark."

Meanwhile, Quonab had made good his welcome by working on the
farm. But when a week had flown, he showed signs of restlessness.
"We have enough money, Nibowaka, why do we stay?"

Rolf was hauling a bucket of water from the well at the time. He
stopped with his burden on the well-sweep, gazed into the well,
and said slowly: "I don't know." If the truth were set forth, it
would be that this was the only home circle he knew. It was the
clan feeling that held him, and soon it was clearly the same
reason that was driving Quonab to roam.

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