A Daughter of the Forest by Evelyn Raymond (best classic novels txt) 📖

think I could. Besides, you will be wanted at the island. I don’t think Mr. Dutton is a well man. With nobody but an old woman and a young girl he’ll need somebody. You’re not much good, still——”

Pierre laughed. They had about reached the forest and he rested his paddle.

“You hear me. I’m going to where you go. That was the master’s word. I wouldn’t dare not do it. If I did, my mother’d make me sorry. So that’s settled.”

Adrian had doubts as to the truth of this statement of the islander’s commands. He recalled the words: “as far as you desire.” After all, this was not setting a time limit, and it was perfectly natural that anybody should like company through the wilderness. Why, it would be a wild, adventurous journey! the very sort of which he had dreamed before he had tasted the prosaic routine of the lumber-camp. He had his colors and brushes, the birch-bark which served so many forest purposes should be his canvas, they had food, and Pierre, at least, his gun and ammunition—no lad could have protested further.

“All right. It will be a lark after my own heart. We can quit as soon as we’re tired of it; and—look here. Mr. Dutton said you were paid to take me to the nearest town. How far is that? How long to get there?”

“Oh! I don’t know. Donovan’s nighest. Might go in four days—might a week. Canada’s closer, but you don’t want to go north. South, he said.”

“Ye-es. I suppose so. Fact is, I don’t care where I go nor when. I’m in no hurry. As long as the money and food hold out, I’m satisfied.”

“Speakin’ of money. I couldn’t afford to waste my time.”

Adrian laughed at this sudden change of front. It was Pierre who had proposed the long road, but at the mention of money had remembered prudence.

“That’s all right, too. It was of that I was thinking, you greedy fellow. What do guides get, here in the woods?”

Pierre stepped ashore, carefully beached his canoe, and as carefully considered his reply before he made it. How much did this city lad know? Either at camp or on the island had he heard the just rates of such service?

“Well—how much you got?”

“I’m asking a question, not you.”

“About four dollars, likely.”

“Whew! not much. You can get the best of them for two. I’ll give you a dollar a day when we’re resting and one-fifty when we’re traveling.”

Adrian was smiling in the darkness at his own sudden thrift. He had taken a leaf out of his comrade’s own book, and beyond that, he almost loved his precious earnings, so soon as the thought came of parting with them. He instantly resolved to put aside a ten dollar piece to take the “mater,” whenever he should see her. The rest he would use, of course, but not waste. He would paint such pictures up here as would make his old artist friends and the critics open their eyes. The very novelty of the material which should embody them would “take.” Already, in imagination, he saw dozens of fascinating “bits” hung on the line at the old Academy, and felt the marvelous sums they brought swelling his pockets to bursting. He’d be the rage, the hit of the next season; and what pride he’d have in sending newspaper notices of himself to Peace Island! How Margot would open her blue eyes, and Angelique toss her hands, and the master slowly admit that there was genius where he had estimated only talent.

“There’s such a wide, wide difference in the two!” cried Adrian, aloud.

“Hey? What?”

The dreamer came back to reality, and to Pierre, demanding,

“Make it one-seventy-five, and I’ll do it.”

“Well. I will. Now, for to-night. Shall we camp right here or go further into the forest? In the woods I’m always ready for bed, and its later than usual now.”

“Here. I know the very rocks you got under in that storm. They’ll do as good as a tent, and easier.”

Adrian, also, knew that spot and in a few moments both lads were asleep. They had not stopped even to build the fire that was customary in such quarters.

Pierre was awake first, on the next morning, and Adrian slowly rose, stretching his cramped limbs and yawning widely.

“Well, I must say that Angelique’s good mattress beats rocks. You don’t catch me doing that again. I guess I’ll walk down to the water and have a last look at the island.”

“I guess you won’t. You’ll eat your breakfast right now. Then you’ll fix that birch for the carry. If I do the heavy work you’ve got to do the light.”

“Sounds fair enough, but you’re paid and I’m not.”

“It is fair.”

Adrian did not contest the point; the less readily because he saw that the fried chicken Angelique had given them was rapidly diminishing in quantity.

“Think I’ll fall to, myself. My, but I’m hungry! Wish I had a cup of coffee.”

“Can’t waste time now. We’ll have some to-night.”

“Did they give us some?”

“Look in the pack.”

“After breakfast, I’ll oblige you.”

Pierre grinned and helped himself to a wing.

Adrian seized the tin basin which held the fowl and placed it behind himself. “Enough’s as good as a feast. We shall be hungry again. See here. What kind of a bird was this? or birds? all legs and arms, no bodies. Freaks of nature. Eh? How many breast portions have you devoured?”

“Three.”

“Oh! Then, travel or no travel, you get no wage this day. Understand. I’m commander of this expedition. I see to the commissariat. I’ll overhaul the pack, and take account of stock.”

Pierre assisted at the task. Though he had been impatient to get away from that locality, still too dangerously near his mother’s rule, he intended to keep an eye on everything. Paid or not paid, as Adrian fared so would he—only rather better.

“Why, they must have thought we would be in the woods a long time. They were certainly generous.”

They had been, but Pierre considered that they might have been more so.

“This was for both trips. Half is mine.”

“Nonsense. But—there. We’re not going to squabble all the time, like children. And we both know exactly what we have to depend on. We must fish and shoot——”

“How’ll you do that? The only gun is mine.”

“It’s part of the outfit. Let’s see. A little good tent cloth—not big enough to cover any but good-natured folks—salt pork, beans, sugar, coffee, tea, flour, meal, dishes—— Hello! We’re kings, Ricord! Monarchs of Maine.”

“Cut the splints.”

After all, it seemed to be Pierre who did the ordering, but Adrian had sense to see that he was the wiser of the two in woodcraft; even though he himself had made it a study during the last weeks. He seized the axe and attacked a cedar-tree, from which he had soon cut the binding strips he wanted. Then he laid the paddles in the boat, fastening them with rootlets to the three thwarts. He also fastened two broad bands of the pliable splints in such a way that when it was inverted, the weight of the canoe could be borne in part by the forehead and shoulders. He was ready almost as soon as Pierre had retied the pack, which was to be Adrian’s burden.

“All right! I’ll swing her up. This ‘carry’ isn’t a long one and the first thoroughfare is ten miles before we come to dead water. But it’s up-stream that far and we’ll have to warp up some. Part is fair, but more is rips.”

If Pierre thought to confound his mate by his woodland slang he was disappointed. Margot had been a good teacher and Adrian had been eager to learn what he had not already done from the loggers. Pierre had been puzzled by “commissariat” and “expedition” and felt that he had evened matters nicely.

“Oh! I know. A thoroughfare is a river, and a dead water is a lake. And a carrier is—yourself!”

To show his new skill he caught up the canoe and inverted it over his own head. He, also, had been calculating a bit, and realized that the birch was really the lighter burden. So he generously left the pack to his neighbor and started forward bravely.

“All right, like you say. One little bit, then you change. Then, too, maybe I’m not ready.”

With a whistle and spring Pierre hoisted the pack to his shoulders, wound its straps around his body and started off through the forest at a sort of dog-trot pace, pausing neither for swamp nor fallen tree; and Adrian realized that if he were to keep his companion in sight he must travel equally fast.

Alas! this was impossible. The birch which had seemed so light and romantic a “carry” became suddenly the heaviest and most difficult. He caught its ends on tree trunks and righting these blunders he stumbled over the rough way. The thongs that had seemed so smooth cut his forehead and burned into his chest, and putting pride in his pocket, he shouted:

“Pierre! Pierre Ricord! Come back or you’ll get no money!”

It would have been a convincing argument had it been heard, but it was not. Pierre had already gone too far in advance. Yet at that moment a sound was borne on the breeze toward Adrian which effectually banished all thought of fatigue or of ill-treatment. A long-drawn, unmistakable cry that once heard no man with the hunter instinct ever forgets.

“A moose! And Pierre has the gun!”

CHAPTER XIII A DEAD WATER TRAGEDY

But Pierre, also, had heard that distant “Ugh-u-u-ugh!” and instantly paused. His own anxiety was lest Adrian should not hear and be still. Fortunately, the wind was in their favor and the sensitive nostrils of the moose less apt to scent them. Having listened a moment, he dropped his pack so softly that, heavy as it was, it scarcely made the undergrowth crack. His gun was always loaded and now making it ready for prompt use, he started back toward his companion. The Indian in his nature came to the fore. His step was alert, precise, and light as that of any four-footed forester. When within sight of the other lad, listening and motionless, his eye brightened.

“If he keeps that way, maybe—— Ah!”

The moose called again, but further off. This was a disappointment, but they were on good ground for hunting and another chance would come. Meanwhile they would better make all haste to the thoroughfare. There would be the better place, and out in the canoe they’d have a wider range.

“Here, you. Give me the boat. Did you hear it?”

“Did I not? But you had the gun!”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d had it. Too far off. Let’s get on.”

Adrian lifted the pack and dropped it in disgust. “I can’t carry that load!”

Pierre was also disgusted—by the other’s ignorance and lack of endurance.

“What you don’t know about the woods beats all. Haven’t you seen anybody pack things before? I’ll show you. When there’s big game handy is no time to quarrel. If a pack’s too heavy, halve it. Watch and learn something.”

Pierre could be both swift and dexterous if he chose, and he rapidly unrolled and divided the contents of the cotton tent. Putting part into the blanket he retied the rest in the sheeting, and now neither bundle was a very severe tax.

“Whew! What’s the sense of that? It’s the same weight. How does halving it help?”

Pierre swung the canoe upon his head and directed:

“Catch hold them straps. Carry one a few rods. Drop it. Come back after the other. Carry that a ways beyond the first. Drop it. Get number one. All time lap over, beyond, over, beyond. So.”

With a