Cedar Creek: From the Shanty to the Settlement. A Tale of Canadian Life

'I fancy there's a bit of breeze getting up against us,' said Mr. Holt, in a momentary pause from their rapid progression.

''Twill be in our backs coming home,' suggested Arthur, as an obvious deduction.

'And if we can fix up a sail anyhow, we might press it into our service to propel the sledge,' said Mr. Holt.

'Well, I never did hear of sails on dry land before,' said Arthur, thereby proving his Irish antecedents; of which his quick-witted companion was not slow to remind him.

'But I don't much admire that greyish look off there,' he added, becoming grave, and pointing to a hazy discolouration in the eastern skies. 'I shouldn't be surprised if we had a blow to-night; and our easterly winds in winter always bring snow.'

Uncle Zack was lost in admiration of the spirit which projected and executed this ice-boat voyage. 'Wal, you are a knowin' shave,' was his complimentary observation to Mr. Holt. ''Twar a smart idee, and no mistake. You'll only want to fix runners in front of the ice-sled goin' back, an' 'twill carry any load as easy as drinkin'. 'Spose you han't got an old pair of skates handy? I've most remarkable good 'uns at the store, that'll cut right slick up to the Cedars in no time if tacked on to the sled. You ain't disposed to buy 'em, are you? Wal, as you be hard fixed, I don't care if I lend 'em for a trifle. Quarter dollar, say. That's dog-cheap—it's a rael ruination. Take it out in potash or maple sugar next spring—eh? Is it five cents cash you named, Mister Holt? Easy to see you never kep a backwoods store. Did anybody ever hear of anythin' so onreasonable?'

To which offer he nevertheless acceded after some grumbling; and the runners of the borrowed skates were fastened underneath the sled by Mr. Holt's own hands and hammer. Next, that gentleman fixed a pole upright in the midst, piling the planks from the sawmill close to it, edgeways on both sides, and bracing it with a stay-rope to stem and stern. At the top ran a horizontal stick to act as yard, and upon this he girt an old blanket lent by Jackey Dubois, the corners of which were caught by cords drawn taut and fastened to the balustrade afore-mentioned.

Sam Holt had in his own brain a strong dash of the daring and love of adventure which tingles in the blood of youthful strength. He thoroughly enjoyed this rigging of the ice-boat, because it was strange, and paradoxical, and quite out of everyday ship-building. The breeze, become stronger, was moaning in the tops of the forest as he finished; the greyish haze had thickened into well-defined clouds creeping up the sky, yet hardly near enough to account for one or two flakes that came wandering down.

'Ye'll have a lively run to the Cedars, I guess,' prophesied Zack, as he helped to pack in the last plank. 'An' the quicker the better, for the weather looks kinder dirty. See if them runners ain't vallyable now; and only five cents cash for the loan.' The queer little craft began to push ahead slowly, her sail filling out somewhat, as the wind caught in it at a curve of the shore.

Certainly the runners materially lessened the friction of the load of timber on the ice. The skaters hardly felt the weight more than in propelling the empty sledge. When they got upon the open surface of the pond, they might expect aid from the steady swelling of the sail, now fitful, as gusts swept down, snow-laden, from the tree-covered banks of the stream. They hardly noticed the gradually increasing power of the wind behind them; but the flakes in the air perceptibly thickened, even before they had reached the pond.

'Now make a straight course across for the pine point yonder,' said Sam Holt, as they passed in lee shelter for an instant. 'I suspect we might almost embark ourselves, Arthur, for the breeze is right upon it.'

A few minutes of great velocity bore them down on the headland. They stopped for breath, the turned-up prow of their ice-boat resting even in the brush on shore. Then they coasted awhile, until another wide curve of the pond spread in front.

By this time the falling snow was sufficiently dense to blur distant outlines, and an indistinct foggy whiteness took the place of the remaining daylight. Mr. Holt hesitated whether to adopt the safer and more laborious plan of following the windings of the shore, or to strike across boldly, and save a mile of meandering by one rapid push ahead. The latter was Arthur's decided choice.

'Well, here goes!' and by the guiding rope in his hand Mr. Holt turned the head of the ice-boat before the wind. They grasped the balustrades at each side firmly, and careered along with the former delightful speed; until suddenly, Arthur was astonished to see his companion cast himself flat on the ice, bringing round the sledge with a herculean effort broadside to the breeze. A few feet in front lay a dark patch on the white plain—a breathing-hole.

CHAPTER XXI

THE FOREST MAN

During the momentary pause that followed the bringing up of the ice-boat broadside to the breeze, they could hear the fluctuating surge of deep waters, sucking, plunging—in that large dark patch on the ice. An instant more of such rapid progression would have sunk them in it, beyond all hope.

'Live and learn, they say,' remarked Sam Holt, rising from his prostrate position beside the cargo; 'and I certainly had yet to learn that breathing-holes could form at such an early period in the winter as this. We had better retrace our steps a bit, Wynn; for the ice is probably unsound for some distance about that split.'

'A merciful escape,' said Arthur, after they had worked their way backwards a few yards.

'Ay, and even if we could have pulled up ourselves on the brink, the sledge must have been soused to a dead certainty. Had the snow-flakes been a trifle thicker, we wouldn't have seen the hole till we were swimming, I guess. And it's well this cord of Uncle Zack's was rotten, or the sail would have been too much for my pull.' One of the ropes stretching the lower side of the blanket had snapped under the sudden pressure of Sam Holt's vigorous jerk round, and thereby lessened the forward force.

They made a long circuit of the deadly breathing-hole, and then ran for the nearest shore on the farthest side. The deepening layer of soft snow on the surface of the ice impeded the smooth action of the runners considerably, and made travelling laborious.

Under the lee of a promontory covered with pines they drew up to rest for a few minutes, and shake away loose snow.

'You know everything, Holt, so you can tell me why those treacherous breaks in the ice are called breathing-holes.'

'I believe there's no reason to be given beyond a popular Canadian superstition that a lake needs air as well as a human being, and must have it by bursting these openings through its prison of ice. The freezing is generally uniform all over the surface at first, and after a month or so it cracks in certain spots, perhaps where there exists some eddy or cross current in the water. But evidently the hole we saw a while ago was never frozen at all. Uncle Zack would tell you it is over some dismal cavern whence issue whirlwinds and foul air.'

'I think we should get on almost better without skates,' said Arthur, when they had struggled a furlong farther.

'We are in a drift just now,' answered Mr. Holt; 'the wind has heaped the snow up along here. Certainly the skates would be of more use to us farther out on the pond; but I think we had better be cautious, and continue to coast;' and so they did, having the fear of other possible breathing-holes before their eyes.

How grandly roared the wind through the forest of pines with a steady persistent swelling sound, as of breakers upon an iron shore, sweeping off masses of snow wherewith to drown all landmarks in undistinguishable drifts of whiteness, and driving aslant the descending millions of flakes, till the outlines of the lake landscape were confused to the eyes which tried to trace familiar copse or headland.

Sam Holt was secretly somewhat disquieted, and watched narrowly for the cedars which denoted the Wynns' land. He would have abandoned the ice-boat but for unwillingness to risk the fruit of their day's journey. They must be near the swamp and the creek now; it was scarcely possible they could have passed without recognising the cove whence they had issued in the morning; and yet there was a chance. For the weather was extremely thick, and daylight was fading quickly: the disguise of drifts is bewildering, even to the most practised eye.

'Ha! there are our cedars at last!' exclaimed Arthur. 'How the snow has buried them; they look stunted. I suppose up here's the creek;' and he laid his hand beside his mouth to shout a signal to the shanty, which was smothered immediately in the greater tumult of the storm.

Mr. Holt left the grounded ice-boat, and proceeded farther inland to examine the locality, returning in a few minutes, when Arthur had his skates off, with the information that this was merely a cove running in among trees, and by no means the estuary of a stream.

'Now you know, Holt, if this isn't our creek it must be our swamp, and I'm blinded and petrified on that lake. Do let us get overland to the shanty. I'm certain we would travel faster; and we can haul up the planks to-morrow or next day. You see it's getting quite dark.'

'And do you think the pathless forest will be more lightsome than the open ice? No; we'd better kindle a fire, and camp out to-night. I'm pretty sure we must have passed Cedar Creek without knowing.'

Arthur was already so drowsy from the excessive cold that he was only glad of the pretext for remaining still, and yielding to the uncontrollable propensity. But Mr. Holt pulled him on his feet and commanded him to gather brushwood and sticks, while he went about himself picking birch-bark off the dead and living trees. This he spread under the brush and ignited with his tinder-box. The sight of the flame seemed to wake up Arthur with a shock from the lethargy that was stealing over his faculties. Mr. Holt had chosen a good site for his fire in the lee of a great body of pines, whose massive stems broke the wind; so the blaze quickened and prospered, till a great bed of scarlet coals and ends of fagots remained of the first relay of fuel, and another was heaped on. Now Arthur was glowing to his fingers' ends, thoroughly wide awake, and almost relishing the novelty of his lodgings for the night; with snow all around, curtaining overhead, carpeting under foot.

'Curious way they camp out in the Far West,' said Holt, with his arms round his knees, as he sat on their hemlock mattress and gazed into the fire, wherein all old memories seem ever to have a trysting-place with fancy. And so scenes of his roving years came back to him.

'You must know that out in the Hudson's Bay territory the snow is often ten or fourteen feet deep, not only in drifts, but in smooth even layers, obliterating the country inequalities wonderfully. That's the native land of snow-shoes and of furs, where your clothes must be mainly of both for half the year. But I was going to tell you how the voyageurs build a fire when they have to camp out on a winter's night, and there's twelve feet of snow between them and the solid ground.'

'Sheer impossibility,' said Arthur presumptuously; 'the fire would work a hole down.'

'You shall hear. First, they cut down a lot of trees—green timber—about twenty feet or more in length. These are laid closely parallel on the snow, which has previously been beaten to a little consistency by snow-shoes; on the platform thus made the fire is lit, and it burns away merrily.'

'Don't the trees ever burn through?' asked Arthur.

'Seldom; but the heat generally works a cavity in the snow underneath, sometimes quite a chasm, seven or eight feet deep—fire above, water below. Ha! I'm glad to see my old friend the Great Bear looking through over the pines yonder. Our storm has done its worst.'

'Holt, though I'm rather hungry and sleepy, I'm heartily glad of this night's outing, for one reason: you won't be able to leave us to-morrow, and so are booked for another week, old fellow.'

It seemed irrevocably the case; and under this conviction Arthur rolled himself in the blanket (cut from the spar of the ice-boat), and went into dreamland straight from his brushwood bed, Mr. Holt continuing to sit by the fire gazing into it as before; which sort of gazing, experienced people say, is very bad for the eyes. Perhaps it was that which caused a certain moisture to swell into most visible bright drops, filling the calm grey orbs with unspeakable sadness for a little while. The Great Bear climbed higher round the icy pole; the sky had ceased to snow before the absorbed thinker by the fire noticed the change of weather. Then he rose gently, laid further wood on the blazing pile, threw brush about Arthur's feet and body for additional warmth, and, skates in hand, went down to the lake to explore.

On reaching the point of the headland, he looked round. The weather was much clearer; but westwards a glimmering sheen of ice—black land stretching along, black islands, snow-crowned, rising midway afar. Eastward, ha! that is what should have been done hours ago. A fire burned on the edge of the woods at some distance. So they had really passed Cedar Creek unawares, as he suspected from the nature of the ground and trees.

While Robert and Andy crouched by their fire, feeding it up to full blaze with the most resinous wood they could find, the distant shout of the coming travellers gladdened their ears. The servant flung his whole stock of balsam on the beacon at once, causing a most portentous flame-burst, and sprang up with a wild 'hurroo!' wielding one half-burnt fagot à la shillelah about his head.

'Oh, then, Mister Robert, achora, it's yerself is the janius; an' to think of mekin' a lighthouse to guide 'em wid, an' here they are safe home by the manes of it. But now, sir, if ye'll take my advice, as we're always lost when we goes anywhere by ourselves, we ought niver part for the futhur, an' thin we'll all go asthray together safe an' sound.'

'Let's warm ourselves at this glorious fire before we go up to the shanty,' said Arthur, stretching out his feet to the fire. 'Pity to let it waste its sweetness on the desert air.'

So they stood explaining matters by the fire for a few minutes, till Andy, who was never tired of heaping on fresh fuel, came forward with an armful and a puzzled face.

'Mr. Holt, there's somethin' quare in that three, sir, which has a big hole in it full of dhry sticks an' brush, and there's something woolly inside, sir, that I felt wid me two hands; an' more be token it's a big baste, whatever it is.'

'A bear, probably,' said Mr. Holt, as he warmed the sole of one foot. 'Better let him alone till morning, and tuck in his bedclothes again for to-night, poor fellow.' But Arthur had started up to investigate, and must pull the black fleece for his personal satisfaction.

'Oh, throth he's stirrin' now!' exclaimed Andy, who had begun to cram the orifice with the former stuffing of dried bough and brush. 'We've woke him up, Masther Arthur, if it's asleep he was at all, the rogue; an' now he's sthrugglin' out of the hole wid all his might. Keep in there, you big villyan, you don't dare to offer to come out;' for Andy set his shoulder against the great carcase, which nevertheless sheered round till muzzle and paws could be brought into action, and their use illustrated on Andy's person.

'Och, murther!' roared the sufferer; 'he has his arms round me, the baste; he's squeezing me into m—m—mash!'

A blazing stick, drawn from the fire by Mr. Holt's hand, here struck the bear's nose and eyes; which, conjoined with Andy's own powerful wrenching, caused him to loosen his hold, and a ball from the rifle which Robert had fortunately brought down as the companion of their night watch, finished his career.

'Well done, Bob!' when, after a run of thirty yards or so, they stood beside the prostrate enemy; 'you've won our first bear-skin. Now we shall see what the paws are like, in the way of eatables; don't you say they're delicious, Holt?'

Borne upon two strong poles, the bear made his way up to the shanty, and was housed for the rest of the night. Poor Andy was found to be severely scratched by the long sharp claws. 'Sure I'm glad 'twas none of yerselves he tuk to huggin',' said the faithful fellow; 'an' scrapin' as if 'twas a pratie he wanted to peel!'

He had his revenge on the forepaws next morning when Mr. Holt cut them off, some time before breakfast, and set them in a mound of hot ashes to bake, surrounding and crowning them further with live coals. Bruin himself was dragged outside into the snow, preparatory to the operation of skinning and cutting up into joints of excellent meat.

'Do you know, I saw an amazing resemblance to a fur-coated man, as he stood up last night before Robert's shot,' said Arthur.

'You're not the first to see it,' replied Holt. 'The Indians call him "the forest man," and the Lower Canadians the "bourgeois;" they attribute to him a sagacity almost human; the Crees and Ojibbeways fancy him an enchanted being, and will enter into conversation with him when they meet in the woods.'

'Yet they take an unfair advantage of his paws.'

'That's true: my cookery must be almost done.' And he re-entered the hut to dish up his dainty. 'Come, who'll feast with me?'

'Appearances are much against them,' said Robert, eyeing the charcoal-looking paws, which presented soles uppermost on the trencher. Mr. Holt scooped out a portion on to his own plate, and used no further persuasion.

''Twould never do not to know the taste of bear's paw,' said Arthur, as if winding himself up to the effort of picking a small bit. Mr. Holt was amused to see the expression of enlightened satisfaction that grew on his face. 'Oh, Bob, 'tis really capital. That's only a prejudice about its black look,' helping himself again. 'The Indians aren't far removed from epicures, when this is their pet dish.'

'Well,' observed Mr. Holt, filling his horn cup with tea from the kettle, 'they equally relish fried porcupines and skunks; but some of their viands might tempt an alderman—such as elk's nose, beaver's tail, and buffalo's hump.'

'Holt,' said Arthur, scooping the paw a third time, 'it seemed to me that chap had fixed himself in a hole barely big enough, to judge by the way he wriggled out.'

'Very likely. "Bears are the knowingest varmint in all creation," as Uncle Zack would say. They sometimes watch for days before entering a tree, and then choose the smallest opening possible, for warmth's sake, and scrape up brush and moss to conceal themselves. I've known the hollow tree to be such a tight fit that the hunters were compelled to cut it open to get at the bear after he was shot. I suspect the heat of our fire had roused this one, even before Andy pulled away the brush, or he wouldn't ha' been so lively.'

'What's the meat like, Holt? I hope it don't taste carnivorous.'

'You'll hardly know it from beef, except that the shorter grain makes it tenderer; for the bear lives on the best products of the forest. He'll sit on his haunches before a serviceberry tree, bend the branches with his paws, and eat off the red fruit wholesale. He'll grub with his claws for the bear potatoes, and chew them like tobacco. He'll pick the kernels out of nuts, and help himself to your maize and fall wheat when you have them, as well as to your sucking pigs and yearly calves.'

'Then we may fairly eat him in return,' said Robert; 'but I'll leave the paws to you and Arthur.'

'Thank you for the monopoly. Now these knives are sufficiently sharp.' Sam Holt had been putting an edge on them at the grindstone during his talk. 'Come and have your lesson in fur-making, for I must be off.'

'Off! oh, nonsense; not to-day,' exclaimed both. But he was quite unpersuadeable when once his plan was fixed. He took the stage at Greenock that afternoon.

CHAPTER XXII

SILVER SLEIGH-BELLS

The shanty was ere long lined in a comely manner with the planks which had journeyed up the pond in the ice-boat, affording many an evening's work for Arthur. About Christmas all was right and tight.

Now, to those who have any regrets or sadnesses in the background of memory, the painfullest of all times are these anniversaries. One is forced round face to face with the past and the unalterable, to gaze on it, perchance, through blinding tears. The days return—unchanged: but, oh, to what changed hearts!

Were they not thinking of the Canadian exiles to-day, at home, at dear old Dunore? For nothing better than exiles did the young men feel themselves, this snow-white Christmas morning, in the log-hut among the backwoods, without a friendly face to smile a greeting, except poor Andy's; and his was regretful and wistful enough too.

'I say, Bob, what shall we do with ourselves? I'm sure I wish I didn't know 'twas Christmas day at all. It makes a fellow feel queer and nonsensical—homesick, I suppose they call it—and all that sort of thing. I vote we obliterate the fact, by chopping as hard as any other day.'

So, after reading the chapters for the day (how the words brought up a picture of the wee country church in Ireland, with its congregation of a dozen, its whitewashed walls and blindless lancet windows!), they went forth to try that relief for all pains of memory—steady hard work. The ten acres allotted for December were nearly chopped through by this time, opening a considerable space in front of the shanty, and beginning to reveal the fair landscape of lake and wooded slopes that lay beyond. The felled trees lay piled in wind rows and plan heaps so far as was possible without the help of oxen to move the huge logs; snow covered them pretty deeply, smoothing all unsightliness for the present.

'How I long to have something done towards the building of our house!' said Robert, pausing after the fall of a hemlock spruce, while Arthur attacked the upper branches. 'I'd like so much to have it neatly finished before my father and mother and Linda come next summer.'

'Well, haven't you no end of shingles made for the roof?' said the other, balancing his axe for a blow. 'You're working at them perpetually; and Andy isn't a bad hand either at wooden slates, as he calls them.'

'We must have a raising-bee in spring,' concluded Robert, after some rumination—'as soon as the snow melts a little. Really, only for such co-operative working in this thinly peopled country, nothing large could be ever effected. Bees were a great device, whoever invented them.'

'By the way,' said Arthur presently, returning from chopping apart the trunk into two lengths of fifteen feet, 'did you hear that the Scotchman between us and the "Corner," at Daisy Burn, wants to sell his farm and improvements, and is pushing out into the wild land farther up the pond? Nim told me yesterday. He expects three pounds sterling an acre, including fixtures, and he got the ground for nothing; so that's doubling one's capital, I imagine.'

'How for nothing?'

'It was before a human being had settled in these townships, and the concession lines were only just blazed off by the surveyors. Davidson obtained a grant of land on condition of performing what are called settlement duties, which means chopping out and clearing the concession lines for a certain distance. Of course that was another way of payment, by labour instead of cash. But on swearing that it was done, he obtained what Nim calls a "lift," a crown patent, we should say, and the land was his estate for ever.'

'I wish we could transfer a couple of his fenced fields here,' said Robert, 'and his young orchard. We must have some sort of a garden, Arthur, before Linda comes.'

'Yes, she never could get on without her flower beds. I say, Bob, won't Cedar Creek look awfully wild to them?'

They worked on awhile both thinking of that. Any one accustomed to smooth enclosed countries, with regular roads and houses at short distances, would indeed find the backwoods 'awfully wild.' And that most gentle mother, how would she bear the transplanting?

'I had a very misty idea of what bush-life was, I own, till I found myself in it,' quoth Robert, after a long silence, broken only by the ring of the axes.

'Living like a labourer at home, but without half his comforts,' said Arthur, piling the boughs. 'Tell you what, Bob, we wouldn't be seen doing the things we do here. Suppose Sir Richard Lacy or Lord Scutcheon saw us in our present trim?'