Rolf In The Woods
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They cannot rise except from water. In the night the new ice
looks like water; they come down and cannot rise. I have often
seen it." Two days after, a harder frost came on. The ice was
safe for a dog; the divers or grebes were still on its surface.
So they sent Skookum. He soon returned with two beautiful grebes,
whose shining, white breast feathers are as much prized as some
furs.
Quonab grunted as he held them up. "Ugh, it is often so in this
Mad Moon. My father said it is because of Kaluskap's dancing."
"I don't remember that one."
"Yes, long ago. Kaluskap felt lazy. He wanted to eat, but did not
wish to hunt, so he called the bluejay and said: 'Tell all the
woods that to-morrow night Kaluskap gives a new dance and teaches
a new song,' and he told the hoot owl to do the same, so one kept
it up all day -- 'Kaluskap teaches a new dance to-morrow night,'
and the other kept it up all night: 'Kaluskap teaches a new song
at next council.'
"Thus it came about that all the woods and waters sent their folk
to the dance.
"Then Kaluskap took his song-drum and said: 'When I drum and sing
you must dance in a circle the same way as the sun, close your
eyes tightly, and each one shout his war whoop, as I cry "new
songs"!'
"So all began, with Kaluskap drumming in the middle, singing:
"'New songs from the south, brothers, Close your eyes tightly,
brothers, Dance and learn a new song.
"As they danced around, he picked out the fattest, and, reaching
out one hand, seized them and twisted their necks, shouting out,
'More war-cries, more poise! that's it; now you are learning!'
"At length Shingebis the diver began to have his doubts and he
cautiously opened one eye, saw the trick, and shouted: 'Fly,
brothers, fly! Kaluskap is killing us !'
"Then all was confusion. Every one tried to escape, and Kaluskap,
in revenge, tried to kill the Shingebis. But the diver ran for
the water and, just as he reached the edge, Kaluskap gave him a
kick behind that sent him half a mile, but it knocked off all his
tail feathers and twisted his shape so that ever since his legs
have stuck out where his tail was, and he cannot rise from the
land or the ice. I know it is so, for my father, Cos Cob, told me
it was true, and we ourselves have seen it. It is ever so. To go
against Kaluskap brings much evil to brood over."
A few nights later, as they sat by their fire in the cabin, a
curious squeaking was heard behind the logs. They had often heard
it before, but never so much as now. Skookum turned his head on
one side, set his ears at forward cock. Presently, from a hole
'twixt logs and chimney, there appeared a small, white breasted
mouse.
Its nose and ears shivered a little; its black eyes danced in the
firelight. It climbed up to a higher log, scratched its ribs,
then rising on its hind legs, uttered one or two squeaks like
those they had heard so often, but soon they became louder and
continuous:
"Peg, peo, peo, peo, peo, peo, peo, oo. Tree, tree, tree, tree,
trrrrrrr, Turr, turr, turr, tur, tur, Wee, wee, wee, we "--
The little creature was sitting up high on its hind legs, its
belly muscles were working, its mouth was gaping as it poured out
its music. For fully half a minute this went on, when Skookum
made a dash; but the mouse was quick and it flashed into the
safety of its cranny.
Rolf gazed at Quonab inquiringly.
"That is Mish-a-boh-quas, the singing mouse. He always comes to
tell of war. In a little while there will be fighting."
A Lesson in Stalking
Did you ever see any fighting, Quonab?"
"Ugh! In Revolution, scouted for General Gates."
"Judging by the talk, we're liable to be called on before a year.
What will you do? "
"Fight."
"As soldier?"
"No! scout."
"They may not want us."
"Always want scouts," replied the Indian.
"It seems to me I ought to start training now."
"You have been training."
"How is that?"
"A scout is everything that an army is, but it's all in one man.
An' he don't have to keep step."
"I see, I see," replied Rolf, and he realized that a scout is
merely a trained hunter who is compelled by war to hunt his
country's foes instead of the beasts of the woods.
"See that?" said the Indian, and he pointed to a buck that was
nosing for cranberries in the open expanse across the river where
it left the lake. "Now, I show you scouting." He glanced at the
smoke from the fire, found it right for his plan, and said: "See!
I take my bow. No cover, yet I will come close and kill that
deer."
Then began a performance that was new to Rolf, and showed that
the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He
took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head,
and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head
looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door,
and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the
open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the
herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and
columnar neck to look around. There was no cover but creeping
herbage. Rolf suspected that the Indian would decoy the buck by
some whistle or challenge, for the thickness of its neck showed
the deer to be in fighting humour.
Flat on his breast the Indian lay. His knees and elbow seemed to
develop centipedic power; his head was a mere clump of growing
stuff. He snaked his way quietly for twenty-five yards, then came
to the open, sloping shore, with the river forty yards wide of
level shining ice, all in plain view of the deer; how was this to
be covered?
There is a well-known peculiarity of the white tail that the
Indian was counting on; when its head is down grazing, even
though not hidden, the deer does not see distant objects; before
the head is raised, its tail is raised or shaken. Quonab knew
that if he could keep the tail in view, he could avoid being
viewed by the head. In a word, only an ill-timed movement or a
whiff could betray him.
The open ice was, of course, a hard test, and the hunter might
have failed, but that his long form looked like one of the logs
that were lying about half stranded or frozen in the stream.
Watching ever the alert head and tail, he timed his approach,
working hard and moving East when the head was down; but when
warned by a tail-jerk he turned to a log nor moved a muscle. Once
the ice was crossed, the danger of being seen was less, but of
being smelt was greater, for the deer was moving about, and
Quonab watched the smoke from the cabin for knowledge of the
wind. So he came within fifty yards, and the buck, still sniffing
along and eagerly champing the few red cranberries it found above
the frozen moss, was working toward a somewhat higher cover. The
herbage was now fully eighteen inches high, and Quonab moved a
little faster. The buck found a large patch of berries under a
tussock and dropped on its knees to pick them out, while Quonab
saw the chance and gained ten yards before the tail gave warning.
After so long a feeding-spell, the buck took an extra long
lookout, and then walked toward the timber, whereby the Indian
lost all he had gained. But the browser's eye was drawn by a
shining bunch of red, then another; and now the buck swung until
there was danger of betrayal by the wind; then down went its head
and Quonab retreated ten yards to keep the windward. Once the
buck raised its muzzle and sniffed with flaring nostrils, as
though its ancient friend had brought a warning. But soon he
seemed reassured, for the landscape showed no foe, and nosed back
and forth, while Quonab regained the yards he had lost. The buck
worked now to the taller cover, and again a tempting bunch of
berries under a low, dense bush caused it to kneel for farther
under-reaching. Quonab glided swiftly forward, reached the
twenty-five-yard limit, rose to one knee, bent the stark cedar
bow. Rolf saw the buck bound in air, then make for the wood with
great, high leaps; the dash of disappointment was on him, but
Quonab stood erect, with right hand raised, and shouted:
"Ho -- ho."
He knew that those bounds were unnecessarily high, and before the
woods had swallowed up the buck, it fell -- rose -- and fell
again, to rise not. The arrow had pierced its heart.
Then Rolf rushed up with kindled eye and exultant pride to slap
his friend on the back, and exclaim:
"I never thought it possible; the greatest feat in hunting I ever
saw; you are a wonder!"
To which the Indian softly replied, as he smiled:
"Ho! it was so I got eleven British sentries in the war. They
gave me a medal with Washington's head."
"They did! how is it I never heard of it? Where is it?"
The Indian's face darkened. "I threw it after the ship that stole
my Gamowini."
Rolf Meets a Canuck
The winter might have been considered eventful, had not so many
of the events been repetitions of former experience. But there
were several that by their newness deserve a place on these
pages, as they did in Rolf's memory.
One of them happened soon after the first sharp frost. It had
been an autumn of little rain, so that many ponds had dried up,
with the result that hundreds of muskrats were forced out to seek
more habitable quarters. The first time Rolf saw one of these
stranded mariners on its overland journey, he gave heedless
chase. At first it made awkward haste to escape; then a second
muskrat was discovered just ahead, and a third. This added to
Rolf's interest. In a few bounds he was among them, but it was to
get a surprise. Finding themselves overtaken, the muskrats turned
in desperation and attacked the common enemy with courage and
fury. Rolf leaped over the first, but the second sprang, caught
him by the slack of the trouser leg, and hung on. The third flung
itself on his foot and drove its sharp teeth through the
moccasin. Quickly the first rallied and sprang on his other leg
with all the force of its puny paws, and powerful jaws.
Meanwhile Quonab was laughing aloud and holding back Skookum,
who, breathing fire and slaughter, was mad to be in the fight.
"Ho! a good fight! good musquas! Ho, Skookum, you must not always
take care of him, or he will not learn to go alone.
"Ugh, good!" as the third muskrat gripped Rolf by the calf.
There could be but one finish, and that not long delayed. A
well-placed kick on one, the second swung by the tail, the third
crushed under his heel, and the affair ended. Rolf had three
muskrats and five cuts. Quonab had much joy and Skookum a sense
of lost opportunity.
"This we should paint on the wigwam," said Quonab. "Three great
warriors attacked one Sagamore. They were very brave, but he was
Nibowaka and very strong; he struck them down as the Thunderbird,
Hurakan, strikes the dead pines the fire has left on the hilltop
against the sky. Now shall you eat their hearts, for they were
brave. My father told me a fighting muskrat's heart is great
medicine; for he seeks peace while it is possible, then he turns
and fights without fear."
A few days later, they sighted a fox. In order to have a joke on
Skookum, they put him on its track, and away he went, letting off
his joy-whoops at every jump. The men sat down to wait, knowing
full well that after an hour Skookum would come back with a long
tongue and an air of depression. But they were favoured with an
unexpected view of the chase. It showed a fox bounding over the
snow, and not twenty yards behind was their energetic four-legged
colleague.
And, still more unexpected, the fox was overtaken in the next
thicket, shaken to limpness, and dragged to be dropped at
Quonab's feet. This glorious victory by Skookum was less
surprising, when a closer examination showed that the fox had
been in a bad way. Through some sad, sudden indiscretion, he had
tackled a porcupine and paid the penalty. His mouth, jaws and
face, neck and legs, were bristling with quills. He was sick and
emaciated. He could not have lasted many days longer, and
Skookum's summary lynching was a blessing in disguise.
The trappers' usual routine was varied by a more important
happening. One day of deep snow in January, when they were
running the northern line on Racquet River, they camped for the
night at their shelter cabin, and were somewhat surprised at dusk
to hear a loud challenge from Skookum replied to by a human
voice, and a short man with black whiskers appeared. He raised
one hand in token of friendliness and was invited to come in.
He was a French Canadian from La Colle Mills. He had trapped here
for some years. The almost certainty of war between Canada and
the States had kept his usual companions away. So he had trapped
alone, always a dangerous business, and had gathered a lot of
good fur, but had fallen on the ice and hurt himself inwardly, so
that he had no strength. He could tramp out on snowshoes, but
could not carry his pack of furs. He had long known that he had
neighbours on the south; the camp fire smoke proved that, and he
had come now to offer all his furs for sale.
Quonab shook his head, but Rolf said, "We'll come over and see
them."
A two-hours' tramp in the morning brought them to the Frenchman's
cabin. He opened out his furs; several otter, many sable, some
lynx, over thirty beaver -- the whole lot for two hundred
dollars. At Lyons Falls they were worth double that.
Rolf saw a chance for a bargain. He whispered, "We can double our
money on it, Quonab. What do ye say?"
The reply was simply, "Ugh! you are Nibowaka."
"We'll take your offer, if we can fix it up about payment, for I
have no money with me and barely two hundred dollars at the
cabin."
"You half tabac and grosairs? "
"Yes, plenty."
"You can go 'get 'em ? Si?"
Rolf paused, looked down, then straight at the Frenchman.
"Will you trust me to take half the fur now; when I come back
with the pay I can get the rest."
The Frenchman looked puzzled, then, "By Gar you look de good
look. I let um go. I tink you pretty good fellow, parbleu!"
So Rolf marched away with half the furs and four days later he
was back and paid the pale-faced but happy Frenchman the one
hundred and fifty dollars he had received from Van Cortlandt,
with other bills making one hundred and ninety-five dollars and
with groceries and tobacco enough to satisfy the trapper. The
Frenchman proved a most amiable character. He and Rolf took to
each other greatly, and when they shook hands at parting, it was
in the hope of an early and happier meeting.
Francois la Colle turned bravely for the ninety-mile tramp over
the snow to his home, while Rolf went south with the furs that
were to prove a most profitable investment, shaping his life in
several ways, and indirectly indeed of saving it on one occasion.
War
Eighteen hundred and twelve had passed away. President Madison,
driven by wrongs to his countrymen and indignities that no nation
should meekly accept, had in the midsummer declared war on Great
Britain. Unfitted to cope with the situation and surrounded by
unfit counsellors, his little army of heroic men led by unfit
commanders had suffered one reverse after another.
The loss of Fort Mackinaw, Chicago, Detroit, Brownstown, and the
total destruction of the American army that attacked Queenstown
were but poorly offset by the victory at Niagara and the
successful defence of Ogdensburg.
Rolf and Quonab had repaired to Albany as arranged, but they left
it as United States scouts, not as guides to the four young
sportsmen who wished to hark back to the primitive.
Their first commission had been the bearing of despatches to
Plattsburg.
With a selected light canoe and a minimum of baggage they reached
Ticonderoga in two days, and there renewed their acquaintance
with General Hampton, who was fussing about, and digging useless
entrenchments as though he expected a mighty siege. Rolf was
called before him to receive other despatches for Colonel Pike at
Plattsburg. He got the papers and learned their destination, then
immediately made a sad mistake. " Excuse me, sir," he began, "if
I meet with -- "
"Young man," said the general, severely, "I don't want any of
your 'ifs' or 'buts'; your orders are 'go.' 'How' and 'if' are
matters for you to find out; that's what you are paid for."
Rolf bowed; his cheeks were tingling. He was very angry at what
he thought a most uncalled for rebuke, but he got over it, and he
never forgot the lesson. It was Si Sylvanne that put it into
rememberable form.
"A fool horse kin follow a turnpike, but it takes a man with wits
to climb, swim, boat, skate, run, hide, go it blind, pick a lock,
take the long way, round, when it's the short way across, run
away at the right time, or fight when it's wise -- all in one
afternoon." Rolf set out for the north carrying a bombastic
(meant to be reassuring) message from Hampton that he would
annihilate any enemy who dared to desecrate the waters of the lake.
It was on this trip that Rolf learned from Quonab the details of
the latter's visit to his people on the St. Regis. Apparently the
joy of meeting a few of his own kin, with whom he could talk his
own language, was offset by meeting with a large number of his
ancient enemies the Mohawks. There had been much discussion of
the possible war between the British and the Yankees. The Mohawks
announced their intention to fight for the British, which was a
sufficient reason for Quonab as a Sinawa remaining with the
Americans; and when he left the St. Regis reserve the Indian was
without any desire to reenter it.
At Plattsburg Rolf and Quonab met with another Albany
acquaintance in General Wilkinson, and from him received
despatches which they brought back to Albany, having covered the
whole distance in eight days.
When 1812 was gone Rolf had done little but carry despatches up
and down Lake Champlain. Next season found the Americans still
under command of Generals Wilkinson and Hampton, whose utter
incompetence was becoming daily more evident.
The year 1813 saw Rolf, eighteen years old and six feet one in
his socks, a trained scout and despatch bearer.
By a flying trip on snowshoes in January he took letters, from
General Hampton at Ticonderoga to Sackett's Harbour and back in
eight days, nearly three hundred miles. It made him famous as a
runner, but the tidings that he brought were sad. Through him
they learned in detail of the total defeat and capture of the
American army at Frenchtown. After a brief rest he was sent
across country on snowshoes to bear a reassuring message to
Ogdensburg. The weather was much colder now, and the single
blanket bed was dangerously slight; so "Flying Kittering," as
they named him, took a toboggan and secured Quonab as his running
mate. Skookum was given into safe keeping. Blankets, pots, cups,
food, guns, and despatches were strapped on the toboggan, and
they sped away at dawn from Ticonderoga on the I8th of February
1813, headed northwestward, guided by little but the compass.
Thirty miles that day they made in spite of piercing blasts and
driving snow. But with the night there began a terrible storm
with winds of zero chill. The air was filled with stinging,
cutting snow. When they rose at daylight they were nearly buried
in drifts, although their camp was in a dense, sheltered thicket.
Guided wholly by the compass they travelled again, but blinded by
the whirling white they stumbled and blundered into endless
difficulties and made but poor headway. After dragging the
toboggan for three hours, taking turns at breaking the way, they
were changing places when Rolf noticed a large gray patch on
Quonab's cheek and nose.
"Quonab, your face is frozen," he said.
"So is yours," was the reply.
Now they turned aside, followed a hollow until they reached a
spruce grove, where they camped and took an observation, to learn
that the compass and they held widely different views about the
direction of travel. It was obviously useless to face the storm.
They rubbed out their frozen features with dry snow and rested by
the fire.
No good scout seeks for hardship; he avoids the unnecessary trial
of strength and saves himself for the unavoidable. With zero
weather about them and twenty-four hours to wait in the storm,
the scouts set about making themselves thoroughly comfortable.
With their snowshoes they dug away the snow in a circle a dozen
feet across, piling it up on the outside so as to make that as
high as possible. When they were
down to the ground, the wall of snow around them was five feet
high. Now they went forth with the hatchets, cut many small
spruces, and piled them against the living spruces about the camp
till there was a dense mass of evergreen foliage ten feet high
around them, open only at the top, where was a space five feet
across. With abundance of dry spruce wood, a thick bed of balsam
boughs, and plenty of blankets they were in what most woodmen
consider comfort complete.
They had nothing to do now but wait. Quonab sat placidly smoking,
Rolf was sewing a rent in his coat, the storm hissed, and the
wind-driven ice needles rattled through the trees to vary the
crackle of the fire with a "siss" as they fell on the embers. The
low monotony of sound was lulling in its evenness, when a faint
crunch of a foot on the snow was heard. Rolf reached for his gun,
the fir tree screen was shaken a little, and a minute later there
bounded in upon them the snow covered form of little dog Skookum,
expressing his good-will by excessive sign talk in which every
limb and member had a part. They had left him behind, indeed, but
not with his consent, so the bargain was incomplete.
There was no need to ask now, What shall we do with him? Skookum
had settled that, and why or how he never attempted to explain.
He was wise who made it law that "as was his share who went forth
to battle, so shall his be that abode with the stuff," for the
hardest of all is the waiting. In the morning there was less
doing in the elemental strife. There were even occasional periods
of calm and at length it grew so light that surely the veil was
breaking.
Quonab returned from a brief reconnoitre to say, " Ugh! -- good
going."
The clouds were broken and flying, the sun came out at times, but
the wind was high, the cold intense, and the snow still drifting.
Poor Skookum had it harder than the men, for they wore snowshoes;
but he kept his troubles to himself and bravely trudged along
behind. Had he been capable of such reflection he might have
said, "What delightful weather, it keeps the fleas so quiet."
That day there was little to note but the intense cold, and again
both men had their cheeks frost-bitten on the north side. A nook
under an overhanging rock gave a good camp that night. Next day
the bad weather resumed, but, anxious to push on they faced it,
guided chiefly by the wind. It was northwest, and as long as they
felt this fierce, burning cold mercilessly gnawing on their
hapless tender right cheek bones, they knew they were keeping
their proper main course.
They were glad indeed to rest at dusk and thaw their frozen
faces. Next day at dawn they were off; at first it was calm, but
the surging of the snow waves soon began again, and the air was
filled with the spray of their lashing till it was hard to see
fifty yards in any direction. They were making very bad time. The
fourth day should have brought them to Ogdensburg, but they were
still far off; how far they could only guess, for they had not
come across a house or a settler.
Ogdensburg
The same blizzard was raging on the next day when Skookum gave
unequivocal sign talk that he smelled something.
It is always well to find out what stirs your dog. Quonab looked
hard at Skookum. That sagacious mongrel was sniffing vigorously,
up in the air, not on the ground; his mane was not bristling, and
the patch of dark hair that every gray or yellow dog has at the
base of his tail, was not lifted.
"He smells smoke," was the Indian's quick diagnosis. Rolf pointed
Up the wind and made the sign-talk query. Quonab nodded.
It was their obvious duty to find out who was their smoky
neighbour. They were now not so far from the St. Lawrence; there
was a small chance of the smoke being from a party of the enemy;
there was a large chance of it being from friends; and the
largest chance was that it came from some settler's cabin where
they could get necessary guidance.
They turned aside. The wind now, instead of on the right cheek,
was square in their faces. Rolf went forward increasing his pace
till he was as far ahead as was possible without being out of
sight. After a mile their way led downward, the timber was
thicker, the wind less, and the air no more befogged with flying
snow. Rolf came to a long, deep trench that wound among the
trees; the snow at the bottom of it was very hard. This was what
he expected; the trail muffled under new, soft snow, but still a
fresh trail and leading to the camp that Skookum had winded.
He turned and made the sign for them to halt and wait. Then
strode cautiously along the winding guide line.
In twenty minutes the indications of a settlement increased, and
the scout at length was peering from the woods across the open
down to a broad stream on whose bank was a saw mill, with the
usual wilderness of ramshackle shanties, sheds, and lumber piles
about.
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