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

stick he illustrated on the ground, and wasting no further time nor speech, clasped his gun the tighter under his arm and trotted forward again.

Adrian obeyed instructions, and though it seemed, at first, a waste to go back and forth along the carry as he had been directed, found that, in the end, he had accomplished his task with small fatigue or delay.

“Another bit of woodcraft for my knowledge box. Useful elsewhere, too. Wish I could get through this country as fast as Pierre does. But he’ll have to wait for me, anyway.”

For a time Adrian could easily trace the route of his guide by the bruises the canoe had given the leaves and undergrowth but after awhile the forest grew more open and this trail was lost. Then he stopped to consider. He had no intention of losing himself again.

“We are aiming for the south. Good. All the big branches of these hemlocks point that way—so yonder’s my road. Queer, too, how mossy the tree trunks are on the north sides. I’ve heard that you could drop an Indian anywhere in any forest and he’d travel to either point of the compass he desired with nothing to guide him but his instinct. Wish I were an Indian! Wish, rather, I had my own compass and good outfit that went over in my canoe. Hurrah! There’s a glimmer of water. That’s the thoroughfare. Now a dash for it!”

Adrian was proud of his new skill in finding his own way through a trackless forest, but though he duly reached the stream he could not for a time see anything of Pierre. He did not wish to shout, lest the moose might be near and take fright, but at last he did give a faint halloo and an answer came at once. Then the boat shot out from behind a clump of alders and made down the river toward him.

The current was swift and strong and there was considerable poling to be done before it touched the shore and Pierre stepped out.

“I’ve been looking round. This is as good a place to camp to-night as we’ll find. Leave the things here, and might as well get ready now. Then we can stay out all day and come back when we like.”

“But I thought we were to go on up the thoroughfare. Why stop here at all? Other camping places are easy to find.”

“Are they? My, you can ask questions. Good many things go to making right sort of camp. Dry ground, good water to drink, fire-wood, poles—— Oh! shucks! If you don’t know, keep still and learn.”

This was excellent advice and Adrian was tired. He decided to trust to the other lad’s common sense and larger experience, and having so decided, calmly stretched himself out upon the level bank of the stream and went to sleep.

Pierre’s temper rose still higher and after he had endured the sight of Adrian’s indolence as long as possible he stepped to the river and dipped a bucket of water. Then he returned and quietly dashed it over the drowsy lad. The effect was all that Pierre desired.

“What did you do that for?”

“Take this axe and get to work. I’ve chopped long enough. It’s my turn to rest. Or would be, only I’m after moose.”

Adrian realized that he had given cause for offense and laughed good-naturedly. His nap had rested him much more than his broken sleep of the night under the rocks, and the word “moose” had an inspiration all its own.

“I’ve cut the fire-wood. You get poles for the tent. I’ll get things ready for supper.”

Adrian laid his hand dramatically upon his stomach. “I’ve an inner conviction already that dinner precedes supper.”

“Cut, can’t you?”

“Cut, it is.”

In a few moments he had chopped down a few slender poles, and selecting two with forked branches he planted these upright on a little rise of the driest ground. Across the notches he laid a third pole, and over this he stretched their strip of sheeting. When this was pegged down at a convenient angle at the back and also secured at the ends, they had a very comfortable shelter from the dew and possible rain. The affair was open on one side and before this Pierre had heaped the wood for the fire when they should return after the day’s hunt. Together they cut and spread the spruce and hemlock boughs for their bed, arranging them in overlapping rows, with an added quantity for pillows. Wrapped in their blankets, for even at midsummer these were not amiss, they hoped to sleep luxuriously.

They stored their food in as safe a spot as possible, though Pierre said that nothing would molest it, unless it might be a hungry hedgehog, but Adrian preferred to take no risks. Then with knives freshly sharpened on the rocks, and the gun in hand, they cautiously stepped into the canoe and pushed off.

“One should not jump into a birch. Easiest thing in the world to split the bottom,” its owner had explained.

Adrian had no desire to do anything that would hinder their success, therefore submitted to his guide’s dictation with a meekness that would have amused Margot.

She would not have been amused by their undertaking nor its but half-anticipated results. After a long and difficult warping-up the rapids, in which Adrian’s skill at using the sharp-pointed pole that helped to keep the canoe off the rocks surprised Ricord, they reached a dead water, with low, rush-dotted banks.

“Get her into that cove yonder, and keep still. I’ve brought some bark and’ll make a horn.”

There, while they rested and listened, Pierre deftly rolled his strip of birch-bark into a horn of two feet in length, small at the mouth end but several inches wide at the other. He tied it with cedar thongs and putting it to his lips, uttered a call so like a cow-moose that Adrian wondered more and more.

“Hmm. I thought I was pretty smart, myself; but I’ll step down when you take the stand.”

“’Sh-h-h! Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t breathe, if you can help it.”

Adrian became rigid, all his faculties merged in that one desire to lose no sound.

Again Pierre gave the moose-call, and—hark! what was that? An answering cry, a far-away crashing of boughs, the onrush of some big creature, hastening to its mate.

Noiselessly Pierre brought his gun into position, sighting one distant point from which he thought his prey would come. Adrian’s body dripped with a cold sweat, his hands trembled, specks floated before his staring eyes, every nerve was tense, and, as Margot would have said, he was a-thrill “with murder,” from head to foot! Oh! if the gun were his, and the shot!

Another call, another cry, and a magnificent head came into view. With horns erect and quivering nostrils the monarch of that wilderness came, seeking love, and faced his enemies.

“He’s within range—shoot!” whispered Adrian.

“Only anger him that way. ’Sh! When he turns——”

“Bang! bang—bang!” in swift succession.

The great horns tossed, the noble head came round again, then bent, wavered and disappeared. The tragedy was over.

“I got him! I got him that time! Always shoot that way, never——”

Pierre picked up his paddle and sent the canoe forward at a leap. When there came no responding movement from his companion he looked back over his shoulder. Adrian’s face had gone white and the eagerness of his eyes had given place to unspeakable regret.

“What’s the matter? Sick?”

“Yes. Why, it was murder! Margot was right.”

“Oh! shucks!”

Whereupon Pierre pulled the faster toward the body of his victim.

CHAPTER XIV SHOOTING THE RAPIDS

Three months earlier, if anybody had told Adrian he would ever be guilty of such “squeamishness” he would have laughed in derision. Now, all unconsciously to himself, the influence of his summer at Peace Island was upon him and it came to him with the force of a revelation that God had created the wild creatures of His forests for something nobler than to become the prey of man.

“Oh! that grand fellow! his splendidly defiant, yet hopeless, facing of death! I wish we’d never met him!”

“Well, of all foolishness! I thought you wanted nothing but the chance at him yourself.”

“So I did. Before I saw him. What if it had been Madoc?”

“That’s different.”

“The same. Might have been twin brothers. Maybe they were.”

“Couldn’t have been. Paddle, won’t you?”

Adrian did so, but with a poor grace. He would now far rather have turned the canoe about toward camp, yet railed at himself for his sudden cowardice. He shrank from looking on the dead moose as only an hour before he had longed to do so.

They were soon at the spot where the animal had disappeared and pushing the boat upon the reedy shore, Pierre plunged forward through the marsh. Adrian did not follow, till a triumphant shout reached him. Then he felt in his pocket and, finding a pencil with a bit of paper, made his own way more slowly to the side of his comrade, who, wildly excited, was examining and measuring his quarry. On a broad leaved rush he had marked off a hand’s width and from this unit calculated that:

“He’s eight feet four from hoof to shoulder, and that betters the King by six inches. See. His horns spread nigh six feet. If he stood straight and held them up he’d be fifteen feet or nothing! They spread more’n six feet, and I tell you, he’s a beauty!”

“Yes. He’s all of that. But of what use is his beauty now?”

“Humph! Didn’t know you was a girl!”

Adrian did not answer. He was rapidly and skilfully sketching the prostrate animal, and studying it minutely. From his memory of it alive and the drawing he hoped to paint a tolerably lifelike portrait of the animal; and a fresh inspiration came to him. To those projected woodland pictures he would add glimpses of its wild denizens, and in such a way that the hearts of the beholders should be moved to pity, not to slaughter.

But, already that sharpened knife of Pierre’s was at work, defacing, mutilating.

“Why do that, man?”

“Why not? What ails you? What’d we hunt for?”

“We don’t need him for food. You cannot possibly carry those horns any distance on our trip, and you’re not apt to come back just this same way. Let him lie. You’ve done him all the harm you should. Come on. Is this like him?” And Adrian showed his drawing.

“Oh! it’s like enough. If you don’t relish my job—clear out. I can skin him alone.”

Adrian waited no second bidding, but strolled away to a distance and tried to think of other things than the butchering in progress. But at last Pierre whistled and he had to go back or else be left in the wilderness to fare alone as best he might. It was a ghastly sight. The great skin, splashed and wet with its owner’s blood, the dismembered antlers, the slashed off nose—which such as Pierre considered a precious tid-bit, the naked carcass and the butcher’s own uninviting state.

“I declare, I can never get into the same boat with you and all that horror. Do leave it here. Do wash yourself—there’s plenty of water, and let’s be gone.”

Pierre did not notice the appeal. Though the lust of killing had died out of his eyes the lust of greed remained. Already he was estimating the value of the hide, cured or uncured, and the price those antlers would bring could he once get them to the proper market.

“Why, I’ve heard that in some of the towns folks buy ’em to hang their hats on. Odd! Lend a hand.”

Reluctantly, Adrian did lift his portion of the heavy horns and helped carry them to