8. A Wood's Adventure
From the night of Peter Many-Names' arrival at the sugar-camp, Dick had yielded himself utterly to his dreams. Home, duty, Stephanie, all this had become as a shadow before the wonder and delight which the thought of freedom held. And when the time came, he had shaken off all ties of affection, all thoughts of right and gratitude, and had turned north to the country of his longings. At last, at last, the skies were blue for him, the airs were fresh for him, the world was wide for him, he could follow where he would and none should call him back. Of probable consequences he did not think. The struggle was over, and, though he knew he had chosen ill instead of good, the knowledge troubled him little. Was it not enough that the humdrum round of toil lay far behind him, and that all before and on every side of the land was fair with spring?
At the time he found it enough--enough to fairly intoxicate him with delight. In this spirit he began his wanderings, and the days passed in golden dreams of beauty and of freedom. He followed in utter content wherever Peter Many-Names chose to lead, caring nothing so that he might eat and sleep and dream and wander on again, guided by any stream that ran, any wind that blew. After a while he lost count of time, lost count of distance, and was still content. Left to himself, he would have gone on thus indefinitely; but he was held by a keener, harder intellect than his own.
Peter allowed matters to go on thus for some days. He was contemptuously fond of Dick, willing to indulge him to a certain extent. So for nearly two weeks they idled northwards through the awakening woods, killing for food as they required it, with the Indian to do all the hard work and bear most of the burdens.
They travelled in irregular zig-zags, choosing the drier ground, and having a good deal of difficulty owing to streams swollen with melting snow to angry little rivers. But Dick only saw the choke-cherry's white tassels trailing in the water, the white drifts clearing from the hollows and showing all the tender tangled green beneath, the delicate green mist that showed upon the birch-boughs, and the young leaves that reddened the twigs of oak and maple. He only heard the robins whistling from dawn to dusk, the rush and patter of the sudden sparkling showers, the rustlings and murmurs that showed the woods were full of life about them. He ate what was offered him and slept where Peter wished, dazed and enraptured. For two golden weeks the dream endured. And then quite suddenly Peter Many-Names buckled down to the trail.
The dream was roughly broken. Thereafter Dick had no leisure for the beauties of the wilderness. After the day's march, he had only strength enough left to roll himself in his blankets and groan. He lived from dawn till dark in a stupor, not of delight, but of weariness. His softer muscles were racked and tortured with manifold aches, strained and swollen with the effort of the pace. And when he moaned and lamented, Peter scowled at him horribly, and called him rude discourteous names in the Indian tongue.
"Where are we going?" Dick would groan impatiently, at the end of a trying day. "What's the need of all this hurry?"
And Peter's contemptuous little dark face would flame with that excitement which Dick had seen in it that night in the sugar-camp, and his voice would rise again to that wild mesmeric chant. "We are going north, north, north!" he would sometimes answer; "north to the land of clean winds and strong men, to the land of uncounted bison and wild fowl in plenty for the hunter! North to the land loved of its children, to my country! But what do you know of it? Is it not enough for you if I lead you there in ease and safety?"
"Ease!" poor wearied Dick would reply, "do you call this ease?" and then would roll himself in his blanket and fall into the sleep of exhaustion. Day after day this incident was repeated. For Peter Many-Names was merciless, and his tongue played round Dick's very excusable weaknesses with the stinging unexpectedness of a whip-lash.
But after a while Dick's muscles hardened. The day's march was no longer torment to him. He grew almost as lean and wiry as his comrade, though he would never attain to the Indian's powers of endurance of fatigue. And then the daring young pair proceeded amicably enough.
The dream had faded to a more real world, though the beauty of it still remained. Dick's faculties and feelings awoke, though his conscience was sleepy enough. His skill in woodcraft, his hunter's lore, all came again in play, and he and the Indian regarded each other as pleasant company, though the silence of the wilderness was rendering Dick as chary of speech as was Peter, and sometimes they scarcely exchanged a dozen words in as many hours.
He never forgot Stephanie. When the first delight and excitement were over, the thought of her troubled him daily, though as yet the charm of wood-running held him a willing captive. Now and then came ugly little pricks of conscience concerning his duty to his only sister, and to those who had been such friends to him and his in the hour of need; but no glimmer had as yet come to him of a higher duty to One far higher even than these. And on the whole he was perfectly happy.
Yet he welcomed the opportunity that a chance meeting with a southward bound trapper offered him of sending her a word of affection and penitence; which, as we know, she received safely. After that he saw and spoke with no one, Peter seeming to avoid all other wanderers in the wilderness. "No need to run away from man," he was wont to explain, "but no need run after 'im. What you want with 'im? Nothin'. What he want with you? Nothin'. So all right. You come on, quick an' quiet."
Sometimes they came upon the cold ashes of a hunter's fire, now and then upon a deserted Indian camping-place. But the stars and the clear skies and the calling winds, the trees and the bushes and the unseen stealthy life within their shadows, held undisturbed possession of all things.
This same stealthy life was not always unseen. Sometimes Dick and Peter would come upon a battle royal beneath the calm spring dawn. Sometimes they were aware of quiet presences around their evening fires. Sometimes they caught glimpses of great moving shapes, indistinct in the foliage, and knew that some forest lord was watching them. They had as yet contented themselves with whatever small game came most readily to hand, for Dick lacked the love of slaughter, and Peter Many-Names was apparently in a hurry, and turned aside as little as possible.
Once that noiseless spirit of death, that was ever abroad in the forest, touched them more nearly. They had made their camp for the night rather earlier than usual, owing to a slight mishap that had befallen Dick--a strained ankle, which, while not serious, made it imperative for him to have a long night's rest They watched dusk fall over the banks and glades all ablaze with the tall, purple wind-flower of the north, they had seen the stars show softly, one by one, beyond the branches of the trees, they had heard the even trickle of a tiny spring nearby interrupted by faint, faint sounds, as little wild creatures, bold in their obscurity, came there to drink.
As night darkened down, and the flame of the camp-fire grew more bright and ruddy in consequence, the woods became more stealthily hushed. For a moment, watching the gloom surrounding them--black, silent, yet giving the listener an impression of teeming, hungry multitudes within it--Dick's heart sank with a sense of isolation. On every side, for leagues, these forests lay. He felt a benumbing realisation of his own loneliness, and of the smallness of man's aims and hopes when confronted with the impassive greatness of nature. What part had he in this solemn wilderness, full of the things of the woods seeking their meat from God?
A sound like a heavy, dragging footfall broke the silence, and shook Dick's somewhat troubled nerves, so that he nearly jumped out of his blanket, in sudden, unconcealed fright. "What was that?" he cried involuntarily. And Peter responded with the nearest approach to a scornful giggle of which his dignity was capable. For it was only a porcupine taking a nocturnal walk, and not caring how much noise he made, secure in his terrible quills. The thump--thump of his leisurely progress died away, and then the quiet was disturbed only by the cries of night-birds and those continuous, faint rustlings and murmurs which seemed but a part of silence.
After dreamily listening and watching for a while longer, Dick dozed off to sleep. But his slumbers were not as peaceful as usual, owing, perhaps, to the slight pain in his ankle. And presently he was roused again--roused, not by any noise, but by a sudden and complete cessation of all the tiny sounds of the woods about them.
He had thought that the silence before had been deep; but now the intense quiet oppressed him like some palpable weight. He glanced drowsily at the fire, which was low, and then across it to Peter's crouching figure, indistinct in the shadows. Some thought of rousing the Indian was in his mind. "But no, I won't do that," he said to himself. "I 've been laughed at quite enough for one night, and it's only my fancy."
The hush was so great that he could hear the sound of the little breeze among the leaves--so great that it seemed as if all life were held in breathless suspension for a space--and it endured for some moments, broken at last by the frightened flutter of a bird roused from its sleep.
Then, as if this little frightened flutter of wings had been a signal, a dark, snarling shape launched itself from a low branch, and leapt, with a harsh cry, straight upon the Indian!
There was a yell from Peter; and then followed a second's fearful rolling, snarling, grunting, worrying confusion in the shadows. But in that second Dick had unsheathed his knife, cleared the fire at a bound, and leapt to the rescue.
No need to ask what was the assailant. Only one beast, "the devil of the woods," was capable of such an attack. And Dick's heart throbbed as he stood beside that frantic turmoil, lighted only by the uncertain flicker of the fire, and waited for a chance of getting in a thrust, fearing also, lest in striking the lynx, he should wound Peter Many-Names. But on the instant of thinking this, the chance came. Peter's unyielding hands were grasping the beast's throat, and as they rolled over and over, its gaunt side was fully exposed for a moment, and Dick drove in the knife up to the handle.
So strong and true was the blow, that it ended the struggle, and the Indian was safe, though terribly scratched and torn. Indeed, if the savage brute had not leapt short in the first instance, Dick's ready aid might have come too late, and there would have been an end of Peter Many-Names.
Dick laughed a little uncertainly when it was all over. "That was a narrow escape," he said, turning to assist Peter to his feet again. But the Indian had already shaken himself free from the dead lynx, and now took the English boy's hand in his own, regardless of the pain of his wounds, as befitted a brave. He always spoke in his own tongue in those rare moments when he gave way to emotion. And now he began a long and dignified speech, the meaning of which was not difficult to gather. "That's all right," Dick interrupted nervously, "you are not to say any more about it," though, as a matter of fact, he had not understood more than a few words of the rapid, musical oration.
Peter relapsed into his English. "You my brother now," he said briefly; "come danger, come death, come anything, my life yours. My life yours, my home yours, my horses yours, my people yours." He waved a lordly arm to the four points of the compass, and Dick suppressed a laugh. Peter's worldly wealth so evidently existed for purposes of ceremonial gratitude only. But the Indian felt that he had returned thanks with proper dignity, and submitted in a sort of contented, stoic indifference while Dick roughly bound up the worst of his cuts and scratches.
Gratitude is a feeling somewhat difficult to awaken in the heart of the Red Man; but when once it is aroused, it is deep and binding. The adventure with the "lucifee" was a fresh tie between the two lads, and they proceeded on their way in greater good-fellowship than ever.
Through all the splendour of wild forest and deep ravine, Peter led the way, straight north-west, stopping for nothing. And so great was his ascendancy over Dick, that the English boy never questioned his leadership, or even asked definitely where they were going. In the wilds the Indian was supreme, and his speed, endurance, and skill were dominant. Dick relied upon him almost blindly, and was content to follow where he led.
The life at the homestead seemed a thing of the past, part of some other state of existence, so intense a hold had the wilderness upon Dick's mind. But the thought of Stephanie was real and living, the only point of pain in his present lot; and this pain he put aside as much as possible, together with all worry as to the future. "I made my choice," he said to himself, "and there's an end of it. I know it was pretty hard on Steenie, but here I am, and what's the use of worrying?" Minds of his type are convinced of error only by stern measures, and Dick showed a great deal of argumentative skill in assuring himself that he had been perfectly justified in escaping from the bonds of humdrum toil which had grown so unendurable. He knew that he had proved himself weak and lacking in gratitude, nevertheless; but the knowledge had not yet touched his heart to any keener sense of wrong-doing.
Straight northwestward they went, through gradually changing country, and all the subtle passage of the weeks was heralded to them by new flowers, new streams, new lands of wonder. The wild strawberries ripened, and the last violets died. The raspberry canes were heavy with fruit, and the spots where they grew best were much favoured by brown bears, big and little. White lilies shone upon the pools and the still reaches of the small rivers. And still, through all the shifting moods of the year, they hurried on, never resting, never turning aside, but always keeping up the same unvarying rate of speed.
Where was Peter Many-Names going? Dick did not know, and did not care. He had chosen his way of life, and now gave himself up to its delight. He only knew that the wilds he loved were very fair, that the weather was almost unbroken in its warm sunniness, that food was easily come by, and that all things, great and small, made for happiness. He seemed to be one with the clear blue Canadian skies, with the silver stars, with the free, beautiful things of stream and forest, with the very blades of grass beneath his moccasined feet. The little owls, the great wood-peckers, the tiny songsters of the reeds and bushes, he looked upon as his brethren. He felt no return of the desolate ache at his heart he had experienced on the night of Peter's struggle with the lynx. His was that joyous fellowship with nature that knows no weariness, and he troubled himself as little as possible about Stephanie. Not yet had his awakening come.
Straight northwest they went, through all the brief splendour of the northern summer; and the weeks passed in golden dreams of freedom and of beauty. And thus the year drew slowly, inevitably, to its close.