Part 7 (2/2)

”Steel traps, under a log, thirty or forty, I didn't count 'em. I guess Indian work--worth three dollars apiece.”

It was a singular coincidence that he should have chanced to walk to and look under that particular log in that trackless forest.

I saw chivin and chub in the stream when was.h.i.+ng my hands, but my companion tried in vain to catch them. I heard the sound of bullfrogs from a swamp on the opposite side.

You commonly make your camp just at sundown, and are collecting wood, getting your supper, or pitching your tent while the shades of night are gathering around and adding to the already dense gloom of the forest.

You have no time to explore or look around you before it is dark. You may penetrate half a dozen rods farther into that twilight wilderness after some dry bark to kindle your fire with, and wonder what mysteries lie hidden still deeper in it, or you may run down to the sh.o.r.e for a dipper of water, and get a clearer view for a short distance up or down the stream, and while you stand there, see a fish leap, or duck alight in the river, or hear a thrush or robin sing in the woods.

But there is no sauntering off to see the country. Ten or fifteen rods seems a great way from your companions, and you come back with the air of a much traveled man, as from a long journey, with adventures to relate, though you may have heard the crackling of the fire all the while--and at a hundred rods you might be lost past recovery and have to camp out. It is all mossy and _moosey_. In some of those dense fir and spruce woods there is hardly room for the smoke to go up. The trees are a _standing_ night, and every fir and spruce which you fell is a plume plucked from night's raven wing. Then at night the general stillness is more impressive than any sound, but occasionally you hear the note of an owl farther or nearer in the woods, and if near a lake, the semihuman cry of the loons at their unearthly revels.

To-night the Indian lay between the fire and his stretched moose-hide, to avoid mosquitoes. Indeed, he also made a small smoky fire of damp leaves at his head and feet, and then as usual rolled up his head in his blanket. We with our veils and our wash were tolerably comfortable, but it would be difficult to pursue any sedentary occupation in the woods at this season; you cannot see to read much by the light of a fire through a veil in the evening, nor handle pencil and paper well with gloves or anointed fingers.

IX

FRIDAY, JULY 31

We had smooth but swift water for a considerable distance, where we glided rapidly along, scaring up ducks and kingfishers. But, as usual, our smooth progress ere long come to an end, and we were obliged to carry canoe and all about half a mile down the right bank around some rapids or falls. It required sharp eyes sometimes to tell which side was the carry, before you went over the falls, but Polis never failed to land us rightly. The raspberries were particularly abundant and large here, and all hands went to eating them, the Indian remarking on their size.

Often on bare rocky carries the trail was so indistinct that I repeatedly lost it, but when I walked behind him I observed that he could keep it almost like a hound, and rarely hesitated, or, if he paused a moment on a bare rock, his eye immediately detected some sign which would have escaped me. Frequently _we_ found no path at all at these places, and were to him unaccountably delayed. He would only say it was ”ver' strange.”

We had heard of a Grand Fall on this stream, and thought that each fall we came to must be it, but after christening several in succession with this name we gave up the search. There were more Grand or Petty Falls than I can remember.

I cannot tell how many times we had to walk on account of falls or rapids. We were expecting all the while that the river would take a final leap and get to smooth water, but there was no improvement this forenoon. However, the carries were an agreeable variety. So surely as we stepped out of the canoe and stretched our legs we found ourselves in a blueberry and raspberry garden, each side of our rocky trail being lined with one or both. There was not a carry on the main East Branch where we did not find an abundance of both these berries, for these were the rockiest places and partially cleared, such as these plants prefer, and there had been none to gather the finest before us.

We bathed and dined at the foot of one of these carries. It was the Indian who commonly reminded us that it was dinner-time, sometimes even by turning the prow to the sh.o.r.e. He once made an indirect, but lengthy apology, by saying that we might think it strange, but that one who worked hard all day was very particular to have his dinner in good season. At the most considerable fall on this stream, when I was walking over the carry close behind the Indian, he observed a track on the rock, which was but slightly covered with soil, and, stooping, muttered, ”Caribou.”

When we returned, he observed a much larger track near the same place, where some animal's foot had sunk into a small hollow in the rock, partly filled with gra.s.s and earth, and he exclaimed with surprise, ”What that?”

”Well, what is it?” I asked.

Stooping and laying his hand in it, he answered with a mysterious air, and in a half-whisper, ”Devil [that is, Indian devil, or cougar]--ledges about here--very bad animal--pull 'em rocks all to pieces.”

”How long since it was made?” I asked.

”To-day or yesterday,” said he.

We spent at least half the time in walking to-day. The Indian, being alone, commonly ran down far below the foot of the carries before he waited for us. The carry-paths themselves were more than usually indistinct, often the route being revealed only by the countless small holes in the fallen timber made by the tacks in the drivers' boots. It was a tangled and perplexing thicket, through which we stumbled and threaded our way, and when we had finished a mile of it, our starting-point seemed far away. We were glad that we had not got to walk to Bangor along the banks of this river, which would be a journey of more than a hundred miles. Think of the denseness of the forest, the fallen trees and rocks, the windings of the river, the streams emptying in, and the frequent swamps to be crossed. It made you shudder. Yet the Indian from time to time pointed out to us where he had thus crept along day after day when he was a boy of ten, and in a starving condition.

He had been hunting far north of this with two grown Indians. The winter came on unexpectedly early, and the ice compelled them to leave their canoe at Grand Lake, and walk down the bank. They shouldered their furs and started for Oldtown. The snow was not deep enough for snowshoes, or to cover the inequalities of the ground. Polis was soon too weak to carry any burden, but he managed to catch one otter. This was the most they all had to eat on this journey, and he remembered how good the yellow lily roots were, made into a soup with the otter oil. He shared this food equally with the other two, but being so small he suffered much more than they. He waded through the Mattawamkeag at its mouth, when it was freezing cold and came up to his chin, and he, being very weak and emaciated, expected to be swept away. The first house which they reached was at Lincoln, and thereabouts they met a white teamster with supplies, who, seeing their condition, gave them as much as they could eat. For six months after getting home he was very low and did not expect to live, and was perhaps always the worse for it.

For seven or eight miles below that succession of ”Grand” falls the aspect of the banks as well as the character of the stream was changed.

After pa.s.sing a tributary from the northeast we had swift smooth water.

Low gra.s.sy banks and muddy sh.o.r.es began. Many elms as well as maples and more ash trees overhung the stream and supplanted the spruce.

Mosquitoes, black flies, etc., pursued us in mid-channel, and we were glad sometimes to get into violent rapids, for then we escaped them. As we glided swiftly down the inclined plane of the river, a great cat owl launched itself away from a stump on the bank, and flew heavily across the stream, and the Indian, as usual, imitated its note. Soon afterward a white-headed eagle sailed down the stream before us. We drove him several miles, while we were looking for a good place to camp,--for we expected to be overtaken by a shower,--and still we could distinguish him by his white tail, sailing away from time to time from some tree by the sh.o.r.e still farther down the stream. Some _she-corways_ being surprised by us, a part of them dived, and we pa.s.sed directly over them, and could trace their course here and there by a bubble on the surface, but we did not see them come up.

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