Around the Camp-fire

“‘What’s that?’ he whispered.

“‘Sounds mighty like the wind,’ said I, though I knew it wasn’t the wind, for there wasn’t a breath about to stir a feather.

“The sound came from a wooded valley winding down between the hills. It was something like the wind, high and thin, but by and by getting loud and fierce and awful, as if a lot more voices were joining in; and I just tell you my heart stopped beating for a minute. The cattle heard it, you’d better believe, and bunched together, kind of shivering. Then two or three young heifers started to bolt; but the old ones knew better, and hooked them back into the crowd. Then it flashed over me all at once. You see, I was quite a reader, having plenty of time in the long winters. Says I to Teddy, with a kind of sob in my throat, ‘I guess it must be wolves.’ – ‘I guess so,’ says Teddy, getting brave after his first start. And then, not a quarter of a mile away, we saw a little pack of gray brutes dart out of the woods into the moonlight. I grabbed Teddy by the hand, and edged in among the cattle.

“‘Let’s get up a tree!’ said Teddy.

“‘Of course we will,’ said I, with a new hope rising in my heart. We looked about for a suitable tree in which we might take refuge, but our hopes sank when we saw there was not a decent-sized tree in reach. Father had cleared off everything along the river-bank except some Indian willow scrub not six feet high.

“If the cattle, now, had scattered for home, I guess it would have been all up with Teddy and me, and father and mother would have been mighty lonesome on the farm. But what do you suppose the ‘critters’ did? When they saw those gray things just lengthening themselves out across the meadow, the old cows and the steers made a regular circle, putting the calves – with me and Teddy – in the centre. They backed in onto us pretty tight, and stood with their heads out and horns down, for all the world like a company of militia forming square to receive a charge of cavalry. And right good bayonets they made, those long, fine horns of our cattle.

“To keep from being trodden on, Teddy and I got onto the backs of a couple of yearlings, who didn’t like it any too well, but were packed in so tight they couldn’t help themselves. As the wolves came streaking along through the moonlight, they set up again that awful, shrill, wind-like, swelling howl, and I thought of all the stories I had read of the wolves of Russia and Norway, and such countries; and the thought didn’t comfort me much. I didn’t know what I learned afterward, that the common wolf of North America is much better fed than his cousin in the Old World, and consequently far less bloodthirsty. I seemed to see fire flashing from the eyes of the pack that were rushing upon us; and I thought their white fangs, glistening in the moonlight, were dripping with the blood of human victims.

“‘I expect father’ll hear that noise,’ whispered Ted, ‘and he and Bill’ (that was the hired man) ‘will come with their guns and save us.’

“‘Yes,’ said I scornfully; ‘I suppose you’d like them to come along now, and get eaten up by the wolves!’

“I was mighty sorry afterward for speaking that way, for it near broke Teddy’s heart. However, sobbing a bit, the little fellow urged in self-defence, ‘Why, there’s only five wolves anyway, and father and Bill could easily kill them!’

“It was true. There were just five of the brutes, though my excited eyes had been seeing about fifty – just such a pack as I had been used to reading about. However, these five seemed mighty hungry, and now they were right onto us.

“I guess they weren’t used to cattle like ours. Father’s old black-and-white bull was running the affair that night, and he stood facing the attack. The wolves never halted; but with their red tongues hanging out, and their narrow jaws snapping like fox-traps, they gave a queer, nasty gasp that it makes my blood run cold to think of, and sprang right onto the circle of horns.

“We heard the old bull mumble something away down in his throat, and he sort of heaved up his hind-quarters and pitched forward, without leaving the ranks. The next thing we saw, one of his long horns was through the belly of the leader wolf, and the animal was tossed up into the air, yelping like a kicked dog. He came down with a thud, and lay snapping at the grass and kicking; while the other four, who had been repulsed more or less roughly, drew back and eyed their fallen comrade with an air of disapproval. I expected to see them jump upon him and eat him at once, but they didn’t; and I began to distrust the stories I had read about wolves. It appeared, however, that it was not from any sense of decency that they held back, but only that they wanted beef rather than wolf meat, as we found a little later.

“Presently one of the four slouched forward, and sniffed at his dying comrade. The brute was still lively, however, and snapped his teeth viciously at the other’s legs, who thereupon slouched back to the pack. After a moment of hesitation, the four stole silently, in single file, round and round the circle, turning their heads so as to glare at us all the time, and looking for a weak spot to attack. They must have gone round us half a dozen times, and then they sat down on their tails, and stuck their noses into the air, and howled and howled for maybe five minutes steady. Teddy and I, who were now feeling sure our ‘critters’ could lick any number of wolves, came to the conclusion the brutes thought they had too big a job on their hands and were signalling for more forces. ‘Let ’em come,’ exclaimed Teddy. But we were getting altogether too confident, as we soon found out.

“After howling for a while, the wolves stopped and listened. Then they howled again, and again they stopped and listened; but still no answer came. At this they got up and once more began prowling round the circle, and everywhere they went you could see the long horns of the cattle pointing in their direction. I can tell you cattle know a thing or two more than they get credit for.

“Well, when the wolves came round to their comrade’s body, they saw it was no longer kicking, and one of them took a bite out of it as if by way of an experiment. He didn’t seem to care for wolf, and turned away discontentedly. The idea struck Teddy as so funny that he laughed aloud. The laugh sounded out of place, and fairly frightened me. The cattle stirred uneasily; and as for Teddy, he wished he had held his tongue, for the wolf turned and fixed his eye upon him, and drew nearer and nearer, till I thought he was going to spring over the cattle’s heads and seize us. But in a minute I heard the old bull mumbling again in his throat; and the wolf sprang back just in time to keep from being gored. How I felt like hugging that bull!

“I cheered Teddy up, and told him not to laugh or make a noise again. As the little fellow lifted his eyes he looked over my shoulder, and, instantly forgetting what I had been saying, shouted, ‘Here come father and Bill!’ I looked in the same direction and saw them, sure enough, riding furiously towards us. But the wolves didn’t notice them, and resumed their prowling.

“On the other side of the circle from our champion, the black-and-white bull, there stood a nervous young cow; and just at this time the wolf who had got his eye on Teddy seemed to detect this weak spot in the defence. Suddenly he dashed like lightning on the timid cow, who shrank aside wildly, and opened a passage by which the wolf darted into the very centre of the circle. The brute made straight for Teddy, whom I snatched from his perch and dragged over against the flank of the old bull. Instantly the herd was in confusion. The young cow had bounded into the open and was rushing wildly up the interval, and three of the wolves were at her flanks in a moment. The wolf who had marked Teddy for his prey leaped lightly over a calf or two, and was almost upon us, when a red ‘moolley’ cow, the mother of one of these calves, butted him so fiercely as to throw him several feet to one side. Before he could reach us a second time the old bull had spotted him. Wheeling in his tracks, as nimble as a squirrel, he knocked me and Teddy over like a couple of ninepins, and was onto the wolf in a flash. How he did mumble and grumble way down in his stomach; but he fixed the wolf. He pinned the brute down and smashed him with his forehead, and then amused himself tossing the body in the air; and just at this moment father and Bill rode up and snatched us two youngsters onto their saddles.

“‘Are you hurt?’ questioned father breathlessly. But he saw in a moment we were not, for we were flushed with pride at the triumph of our old bull.

“‘And be they any more wolves, so’s I kin git a shot at ’em?’ queried Bill.

“‘Old Spot has fixed two of ’em,’ said I.

“‘And there’s the other two eating poor Whitey over there,’ exclaimed Teddy, pointing at a snarling knot of creatures two or three hundred yards across the interval.

“Sure enough, they had dragged down poor Whitey and were making a fine meal off her carcass. But Bill rode over and spoiled their fun. He shot two of them, while the other left like a gray streak. And that’s the last I’ve seen of wolves in this part of the country!”

“‘That was a close shave,’ said I; ‘and the cattle showed great grit. I’ve heard of them adopting tactics like that.’

“‘Well,’ said the old farmer, getting down from the fence rail and picking up his tin can. ‘I must be moving. Good-day to you.’ Before he had taken half a dozen steps he turned round and remarked, ‘I suppose, now, if those had been Norway wolves or Roossian wolves, the “critters” would have had no show?’

“‘Very little, I imagine,’ was my answer.”

Whether it was that my story had gone far toward putting every one to sleep, I know not. The fact remains, to be interpreted as one will, that no longer was there any objection raised when I proposed that we should turn in. That night, I think, no one of us lay awake over long. Before I dropped asleep I heard two owls hooting hollowly to each other through the wet woods. The sound changed gradually to a clamor of wolves over their slain victim, and then to the drums and trumpets of an army on the march; and then I awoke to find it broad daylight, and Stranion beating a tin pan just over my head.

CHAPTER III.

AT CAMP DE SQUATOOK

The next morning we got off at a good hour. For the last half mile of its course we found Beardsley Brook so overgrown with alders that we had to chop and haul our way through it with infinite labor. Here we wasted some time fishing for Sam’s pipe, which had fallen overboard among the alders. The pipe was black, with crooked stem, plethoric in build, and so heavy that we all thought it would sink where it fell. As soon as the catastrophe occurred we halted till the water, here about two feet deep, had become clear. Then, peering down among the alder-stems, Ranolf spied the pipe on the sandy bottom, looking blurred and distorted through the writhing current. Long we grappled for it, poking at it with pole and paddle. We would cautiously raise it a little way towards the surface; but even as we began to triumph it would wriggle off again as if actually alive, and settle languidly back upon the sand. We all knew, without Ranolf’s elaborate explanations, that its lifelike movement was due to its being so little heavier than the water it displaced, or to the uneven refraction of the light through the moving fluid, or to some other equally satisfactory and scientific cause. Finally Sam, getting impatient, plunged in arm and shoulder, and grasped the pipe victoriously. He came up empty-handed; and we beheld a huge tadpole, now thoroughly aroused, flaunting off down stream in high dudgeon. Ranolf remarked that the laws of refraction were to him obscure; and we continued our journey. The real pipe we overtook farther down stream, floating along jauntily as a cork.

Once out upon the Squatook River our course was rapid, for the current was swift and the channel clear. There were some wild rapids, but we ran them victoriously. By noon we were on the bosom of Big Squatook Lake. By six o’clock we had traversed this beautiful and solitary water, and were pitching our tent near the outlet, on a soft brown carpet of pine-needles. Here was a circular opening amid the huge trunks. Between the lake and our encampment hung a screen of alder and wild-cherry, whence a white beach of pebbles slanted broadly to the waves. While Stranion and Queerman made preparations for supper, the rest of us whipped the ripples of the outlet for trout. The shores of the lake at this spot draw together in two grand curves, and at the apex flows out the Squatook River, about waist-deep and a stone’s throw broad. It murmurs pleasantly on for the first few rods, and then begins to dart and chafe, and lift an angry voice. Hither the Indians come to spear whitefish in their season. To assist their spearing they had the outlet fenced part way across with a double row of stakes. All but the smallest fish were thus compelled to descend through a narrow passage, wherein they were at the mercy of the spearman. This fence we now found very convenient. Letting the canoe drift against it, we perched on top of the stakes, a couple of feet above water, and cast our flies unimpeded in every direction. The trout were abundant, and took the flies freely. For an hour we had most exciting sport. It was in itself, for all true fishermen, worth the whole journey. The Squatook trout are of a good average size, and very game. Of the twenty odd fish we killed that evening, there were two that passed the one and one-half pound scratch upon our scales, and several that cleared the pound.

Deciding to spend some days in this fair spot, we named it Camp de Squatook. Lopping the lower branches of the trees, we made ourselves pegs on which to hang our tins and other utensils; while a dry cedar log, split skilfully by Stranion, furnished us with slabs for a table. Our commissariat was well supplied with campers’ necessities and luxuries, but it was upon trout above all that we feasted. Sometimes we boiled them; sometimes we broiled them; more often we fried them in the fragrant, yellow corn-meal. The delicate richness of the hot, pink, luscious flakes is only to be realized by those who feast on the spoils of their own rods, with the relish of free air and vigor and out-door appetites.

Campers prate much of early hours, and of seeking their blankets with sunset; but we held to no such doctrine. Night in these wilds is rich with a mysterious beauty, an immensity of solitude such as day cannot dream of. Supper over, we stretched ourselves out between tent-door and camp-fire, pillowing our heads on the folded bedding. Across the yellow, fire-lit circle, through the trunks and hanging branches, we watched the still, gleaming level of the lake, whence at intervals would ring out startlingly clear the goblin laughter of the loon.

We were not so tired as on the previous evening, and it took us longer to settle down into the mood for story-telling. At last Stranion was called upon. He was ready, and speech flowed from him at once, as if his mouth had been just uncorked.

A NIGHT ENCOUNTER

“I’ll tell you a tale,” said he, “of this very spot, on this very Big Squatook; and, of course, with me and the panther both in it.

“Once upon a time – that is to say in the summer of 1886 – I fished over these waters with Tom Allison. You remember he was visiting Fredericton nearly all that year. We camped right here two days, and then went on to the Little Lake, or Second Squatook, just below.

“One moonlight night, when the windless little lake before our camp was like a shield of silver, and the woody mountains enclosing us seemed to hold their breath for delight, I was seized with an overwhelming impulse to launch the canoe and pole myself up here to Big Squatook. The distance between the two lakes is about a mile and a half, with rapid water almost all the way; and Allison, who had been amusing himself laboriously all day, was too much in love with his pipe and blankets by the camp-fire to think of accompanying me. All my persuasions were wasted upon him, so I went alone.

“Of course I had an excuse. I wanted to set night-lines for the gray trout, or togue, which haunt the waters of Big Squatook. A favorite feeding-ground of theirs is just where the water begins to shoal toward the outlet yonder. Strange as it may seem, the togue are never taken in Second Lake, or in any other of the Squatook chain.

“It was a weird journey up-stream, I can tell you. The narrow river, full of rapids, but so free from rocks in this part of its course that its voice seldom rises above a loud, purring whisper, was overhung by many ancient trees. Through the spaces between their tops fell the moonlight in sharp white patches. As the long slow thrusts of my pole forced the canoe stealthily upward against the current, the creeping panorama of the banks seemed full of elvish and noiseless life. White trunks slipped into shadow, and black stumps caught gleams of sudden radiance, till the strangeness of it all began to impress me more than its beauty, and I felt a curious and growing sense of danger. I even cast a longing thought backward toward the camp-fire’s cheer and my lazier comrade; and when at length, slipping out upon the open bosom of the lake, I put aside my pole and grasped my paddle, I drew a breath of distinct relief.

“It took but a few minutes to place my three night-lines. This done, I paddled with slow strokes toward that big rock far out yonder.

“The broad surface was as unrippled as a mirror, like it is now, save where my paddle and the gliding prow disturbed it. When I floated motionless, and the canoe drifted softly beyond the petty turmoil of my paddle, it seemed as if I were hanging suspended in the centre of a blue and starry sphere. The magic of the water so persuaded me, that presently I hauled up my canoe on the rock, took off my clothes, and swam far out into the liquid stillness. The water was cold, but of a life-giving freshness; and when I had dressed and resumed my paddle I felt full of spirit for the wild dash home to camp, through the purring rapids and the spectral woods. Little did I dream just how wild that dash was to be!

“You know the whitefish barrier where you fellows were fishing this evening. Well, at the time of my visit the barrier extended only to mid-channel, one-half having been carried away, probably by logs, in the spring freshets. For this accident, doubtless very annoying to the Indians, I soon had every reason to be grateful.

“As I paddled noiselessly into the funnel, and began to feel the current gathering speed beneath me, and noted again the confused, mysterious glimmer and gloom of the forest into which I was drifting, I once more felt that unwonted sense of danger stealing over me. With a word of vexation I shook it off, and began to paddle fiercely. At the same instant my eyes, grown keen and alert, detected something strange about the bit of Indian fence which I was presently to pass. It was surely very high and massive in its outer section! I stayed my paddle, yet kept slipping quickly nearer. Then suddenly I arrested my progress with a few mighty backward strokes. Lying crouched flat along the tops of the stakes, its head low down, its eyes fixed upon me, was a huge panther.

“I was completely at a loss, and for a minute or two remained just where I was, backing water to resist the current, and trying to decide what was best to be done. As long as I kept to the open water, of course I was quite safe; but I didn’t relish the idea of spending the night on the lake. I knew enough of the habits and characteristics of the panther to be aware the brute would keep his eye on me as long as I remained alone. But what I didn’t know was how far a panther could jump! Could I safely paddle past that fence by hugging the farther shore? I felt little inclined to test the question practically; so I turned about and paddled out upon the lake.

“Then I drifted and shouted songs and stirred up the echoes for a good round hour. I hoped, rather faintly, that the panther would follow me up the shore. This, in truth, he may have done; but when I paddled back to the outlet, there he was awaiting me in exactly the same position as when I first discovered him.

“By this time I had persuaded myself that there was ample room for me to pass the barrier without coming in range of the animal’s spring. I knew that close to the farther shore the water was deep. When I was about thirty yards from the stakes, I put on speed, heading for just about the middle of the opening. My purpose was to let the panther fancy that I was coming within his range, and then to change my course at the last moment so suddenly that he would not have time to alter his plan of attack. It is quite possible that this carefully planned scheme was unnecessary, and that I rated the brute’s intelligence and forethought quite too high. But however that may be, I thought it safer not to take any risks with so cunning an adversary.

“The panther lay in the sharp black shadow, so that it was impossible for me to note his movements accurately; but just as an instinct warned me that he was about to spring, I swerved smartly toward him, and hurled the light canoe forward with the mightiest stroke I was capable of. The manœuvre was well executed, for just before I came fairly opposite the grim figure on the stake-tops, the panther sprang.

“Instinctively I threw myself forward, level with the cross-bars; and in the same breath there came a snarl and a splash close beside me. The brute had miscalculated my speed, and got himself a ducking. I chuckled a little as I straightened up; but the sigh of relief which I drew at the same time was profound in its sincerity. I had lamentably underestimated the reach of the panther’s spring. He had alighted close to the water’s edge, just where I imagined the canoe would be out of reach. I looked around again. He was climbing alertly out of the hated bath. Giving himself one mighty shake, he started after me down along the bank, uttering a series of harsh and piercing screams. With a sweep of the paddle I darted across current, and placed almost the full breadth of the river between my enemy and myself.

“I have paddled many a canoe-race, but never one that my heart was so set upon winning as this strange one in which I now found myself straining every nerve. The current of the Squatook varies greatly in speed, though nowhere is it otherwise than brisk. At first I gained rapidly on my pursuer; but presently we reached a spot where the banks were comparatively level and open; and here the panther caught up and kept abreast of me with ease. With a sudden sinking at the heart I called to mind a narrow gorge a quarter of a mile ahead, from the sides of which several drooping trunks hung over the water. From one of these, I thought the panther might easily reach me, running out and dropping into the canoe as I darted beneath. The idea was a blood-curdling one, and spurred me to more desperate effort; but before we neared the perilous pass the banks grew so uneven and the underbrush so dense that my pursuer was much delayed, and consequently fell behind. The current quickening its speed at the same time, I was a good ten yards in the lead, as my canoe slid through the gorge and out into the white moonlight of one of the wider reaches of the stream.

“Here I slackened my pace in order to recover my wind; and the panther made up his lost ground. For the time, I was out of his reach, and all he could do was to scream savagely. This, I supposed, was to summon his mate to the noble hunting he had provided for her; but to my inexpressible satisfaction no mate came. The beauty and the weirdness of the moonlit woods were now quite lost upon me. I saw only that long, fierce, light-bounding figure which so inexorably kept pace with me.

“To save my powers for some possible emergency, I resolved to content myself, for the time, with a very moderate degree of haste. The panther was in no way pressed to keep up with me. Suddenly he darted forward at his utmost speed. For a moment this did not trouble me; but then I awoke to its possible meaning. He was planning, evidently, an ambuscade, and I must keep an eye upon him.

“The order of the chase was promptly reversed, and I set out at once in a desperate pursuit. The obstructed shores and the increasing current favored me, so that he found it hard to shake me off. For the next half mile I just managed to keep up with him. Then came another of those quieter reaches, and my pursued pursuer at last got out of sight.