The Crew of the Water Wagtail by Robert Michael Ballantyne (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📖

startle the deer and send them galloping into the shelter of the woods.

"_What_ a pity!" exclaimed Oliver.

"Not so, my boy," remarked his father. "Experience, they say, teaches fools; and if experience has now taught you that it is foolish to shoot at game out of range, you are no fool, which is not a pity, but matter for congratulation."

"But what about practice, daddy? Did you not say only last night that there is nothing like practice to make perfect?"

"True, lad, but I did not recommend practising at deer beyond range. Besides, you can practise at stumps and stones."

"But stumps and stones don't afford _running_ shots," objected Olly.

"Yes they do, boy. You can run past the stumps while you shoot, and as to stones, you can roll them down hill and let fly at them as they roll. Now clap the hatches on your mouth; you're too fond of argument."

"I'm only a chip of the ancient tree, father," retorted the boy, with a quiet laugh.

How much further this little skirmish might have proceeded we cannot tell, for it was brought to an abrupt close by the sudden appearance of a black bear. It was on turning a cliff which bordered the edge of a stream that they came upon the monster--so close to it that they had barely time to get ready their weapons when it rose on its hind legs to attack them.

"Look out!" yelled Oliver, who, being in advance, was the first to see the bear.

A stone from his sling was well though hastily aimed, for it hit the animal fairly on the nose, thereby rendering it particularly angry. Almost at the same moment a bolt and an arrow flew from the weapons of Paul and Trench; but they flew wide of the mark, and there is no saying what the result might have been had not Hendrick bent his short but powerful bow, and sent an arrow to the feather into the creature's breast.

The modern bullet is no doubt more deadly than the ancient arrow, nevertheless the latter had some advantages over the former. One of these was that, as it transfixed several muscles, it tended to hamper the movements of the victim shot. It also drew attention in some degree from the assailant. Thus, on the present occasion the bear, with a savage growl, seized the head of the arrow which projected from the wound and wrenched it off. This, although little more than a momentary act, gave the hunter time to fit and discharge a second arrow, which entered the animal's throat, causing it to fall writhing on the ground, while Oliver, who had gone almost mad with excitement, grasped his axe, bounded forward, and brought it down on bruin's skull.

Well was it for the reckless boy that Hendrick's arrows had done their work, for, although his young arm was stout and the axe sharp, little impression was made on the hard-headed creature by the blow. Hendrick's knife, however, completed the work and despatched the bear. Then they all sat down to rest while the hunter set to work to skin the animal.


CHAPTER TEN.


OLLY'S FIRST SALMON AND HENDRICK'S HOME.

From this time forward the opportunities for hunting and fishing became so numerous that poor Oliver was kept in a constantly bubbling-over condition of excitement, and his father had to restrain him a good deal in order to prevent the larder from being greatly overstocked.

One afternoon they came to a river which their guide told them was one of the largest in the country.

"It flows out of the lake, on one of the islands of which I have built my home."

"May I ask," said Paul, with some hesitation, "if your wife came with you from the Shetland Isles?"

A profoundly sad expression flitted across the hunter's countenance.

"No," he replied. "Trueheart, as she is named in the Micmac tongue, is a native of this island--at least her mother was; but her father, I have been told, was a white man--a wanderer like myself--who came in an open boat from no one knows where, and cast his lot among the Indians, one of whom he married. Both parents are dead. I never saw them; but my wife, I think, must resemble her white father in many respects. My children are like her. Look now, Oliver," he said, as if desirous of changing the subject, "yonder is a pool in which it will be worth while to cast your hook. You will find something larger there than you have yet caught in the smaller streams. Get ready. I will find bait for you."

Olly needed no urging. His cod-hook and line, being always handy, were arranged in a few minutes, and his friend, turning up the sod with a piece of wood, soon procured several large worms, which were duly impaled, until they formed a bunch on the hook. With this the lad hurried eagerly to the edge of a magnificent pool, where the oily ripples and curling eddies, as well as the great depth, effectually concealed the bottom from view. He was about to whirl the bunch of worms round his head, preparatory to a grand heave, when he was arrested by the guide.

"Stay, Oliver; you will need a rod for this river. Without one you will be apt to lose your fish. I will cut one."

So saying, he went into the woods that bordered the pool, and soon returned with what seemed to the boy to be a small tree about fourteen feet long.

"Why, Hendrick, do you take me for Goliath, who as Paul Burns tells us, was brought down by a stone from the sling of David? I'll never be able to fish with that."

"Oliver," returned the hunter gravely, as he continued the peeling of the bark from the rod, "a lad with strong limbs and a stout heart should never use the words `not able' till he has tried. I have seen many promising and goodly young men come to wreck because `I can't' was too often on their lips. You never know what you can do till you try."

The boy listened to this reproof with a slight feeling of displeasure, for he felt in his heart that he was not one of those lazy fellows to whom his friend referred. However, he wisely said nothing, but Hendrick observed, with some amusement, that his brow flushed and his lips were firmly compressed.

"There now," he said in a cheery tone, being anxious to remove the impression he had made, "you will find the rod is lighter than it looks, and supple, as you see. We will tie your line half-way down and run it through a loop at the end--so!--to prevent its being lost if the point should break. Now, try to cast your hook into the spot yonder where a curl in the water meets and battles with an eddy. Do you see it?"

"Yes, I see it," replied Olly, advancing to the pool, with the rod grasped in both hands.

"It would be better," continued Hendrick, "if you could cast out into the stream beyond, but the line is too short for that, unless you could jump on to that big rock in the rapid, which is impossible with the river so high."

Oliver looked at the rock referred to. It stood up in the midst of foaming water, full twenty feet from the bank. He knew that he might as well try to jump over the moon as attempt to leap upon that rock; nevertheless, without a moment's hesitation, he rushed down the bank, sprang furiously off, cleared considerably more than half the distance, and disappeared in the foaming flood!

Hendrick was suddenly changed from a slow and sedate elephant into an agile panther. He sprang along the bank to a point lower down the stream, and was up to the waist in the water before Olly reached the point--struggling to keep his head above the surface, and at the same time to hold on to his rod. Hendrick caught him by the collar, and dragged him, panting, to land.

Paul and his father had each, with a shout of surprise or alarm, rushed for the same point, but they would have been too late.

"Olly, my son," said Trench, in a remonstrative tone, "have you gone mad?"

"No, father; I knew that I could not jump it, but I've been advised never to say so till I have tried!"

"Nay, Oliver, be just," said the guide, with a laugh. "I did truly advise you never to say `I can't' till you had tried, but I never told you to try the impossible. However, I am not sorry you did this, for I'd rather see a boy try and fail, than see him fail because of unwillingness to try. Come, now, I will show you something else to try."

He took Oliver up the stream a few yards, and pointed to a ledge of rock, more than knee-deep under water, which communicated with the rock he had failed to reach.

"The ledge is narrow," he said, "and the current crossing it is strong, but from what I've seen of you I think you will manage to wade out if you go cautiously, and don't lose heart. I will go down stream again, so that if you should slip I'll be ready to rescue."

Boldly did Oliver step out upon the ledge; cautiously did he advance each foot, until he was more than leg-deep, and wildly, like an insane semaphore, did he wave his arms, as well as the heavy rod, in his frantic efforts not to lose his balance! At last he planted his feet, with a cheer of triumph, on the rock.

"Hush, Olly, you'll frighten the fish," cried Paul, with feigned anxiety.

"You'll tumble in again, if you don't mind," said his cautious father.

But Olly heard not. The whole of his little soul was centred on the oily pool into which he had just cast the bunch of worms. Another moment, and the stout rod was almost wrenched from his grasp.

"Have a care! Hold on! Stand fast!" saluted him in various keys, from the bank.

"A cod! or a whale!" was the response from the rock.

"More likely a salmon," remarked Hendrick, in an undertone, while a sober smile lit up his features.

At the moment a magnificent salmon, not less than twenty pounds weight, leapt like a bar of silver from the flood, and fell back, with a mighty splash.

The leap caused a momentary and sudden removal of the strain on the rod. Oliver staggered, slipped, and fell with a yell that told of anxiety more than alarm; but he got up smartly, still holding on by both hands.

In fishing with the tapering rods and rattling reels of modern days, fishers never become fully aware of the strength of salmon, unless, indeed, a hitch in their line occurs, and everything snaps! It was otherwise about the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is otherwise still with primitive fishers everywhere. Oliver's line could not run; his rod was rigid, save at the point. The result was that it was all he could do to stand and hold on to his captive. The rod, bent down into