BOY SCOUTS IN THE WILDERNESS, by Samuel Scoville, jr. (1919)

Instantly a tiny glowing coal showed in the heap

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[title page]

BOY SCOUTS
IN THE WILDERNESS

BY
SAMUEL SCOVILLE, Jr.


ILLUSTRATED BY

CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL



NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.

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[copyright page]

Copyright, 1919, by
THE CENTURY CO.
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Copyright 1919, BOYS LIFE
THE BOY SCOUTS MAGAZINE
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Published, September, 1919



Printed in U. S. A.

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[dedication]

TO
MY OWN BOY SCOUTS
GURDON TRUMBULL SCOVILLE
AND
WILLIAM BEECHER SCOVILLE

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[table of contents]

            CONTENTS

CHAPTER                  PAGE

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[illustrations]

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[half-title page]

BOY SCOUTS
IN THE WILDERNESS

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BOY SCOUTS
IN THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER I

PUT UP OR SHUT UP

"No, sir," said James H. Donegan, pounding the top of his library table with a big red fist about the size of a ham, "you can't do it. I 'm not going to have a pack of lazy, good-for-nothin' kids build any cabin in my woods. It 's all nonsense anyway, this Boy Scout business. It don't get you anywhere. When I was you boys' age, I was making a living with my own hands and feet and brains. That 's why I own a hundred square miles of the best timber land on the Canadian border to-day."

Mr. Donegan, the lumber-king, often known as "Big Jim," paused puffingly and scowled at the four Boy Scouts who stood be-

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fore him. There was silence for a moment while he peeled the tinfoil from an expensive cigar and carefully lighted it. Then Dick Johnstone, the assistant scoutmaster, spoke up.

"You 're mistaken, Mr. Donegan," he said, a little shakily, for Dick was not used to public speaking. "The Boy Scout movement is n't nonsense. We thought you might let us build a cabin out of some dead-and-down wood that you had on your hundred square miles, but if you won't--all right. Anyway, Boy Scouts learn to use their heads and hands just as you did and to be brave and self-reliant and prepared and--and--courteous--just as you did n't," and Dick started for the door, followed by the three patrol-leaders of the Cornwall Boy Scouts, all walking very straight and dignified in their new uniforms.

"Hi, there, you come back!" shouted Big Jim as the boys were going out. "You say you learn to be brave and self-reliant and prepared and that you learn to use your head and hands?"

"That 's right," responded Dick.

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"Well," rumbled Mr. Donegan, "I 'll just give you fresh kids a chance to prove that. Pick out a couple of your best scouts and bring 'em here next Monday. I 'll run them up twenty-five miles north into the thickest part of the woods. Let 'em strip and stick it out there for a month. I understand you fellows claim to know how to make fires by rubbin' sticks together and how to track and trap and make lean-tos and all kinds of fool-nonsense of that sort. Well, here 's a chance for you to prove what you can do. If two of your scouts can stay out for a month and find their own clothes and food and fire and come back without being helped by anyone else, I 'll give the Cornwall Boy Scouts the finest log-cabin that was ever built and ten acres of timber land. And say," went on Big Jim, with a chuckle, "if those boys are so blame reliant and prepared, they ought to be able to earn a little something in a whole month even out there in the woods. I'll agree to give them double the value of any property they bring out. Now, put up or shut up," ended the lumber-king. "Have your scouts ready to start

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on Monday morning, August 20th, or don't come whining around for any more favors."

"You 'll hear from us, Mr. Donegan," was all that Dick said as the boys filed out and marched off down the great driveway that ran for half a mile to the stone gates which guarded the lumber-king's estate.

That night a special meeting of the Boy Scouts of Cornwall was called down at the Grange Hall, where they met every week.

Half an hour before the time set, from a patch of woods over near the hall was heard the call of the screech-owl. Three times it wailed from the woods. Then there was a pause. Three times again it sounded. Another wait and for the third time the mournful, tremulous notes shuddered through the still air. This triple owl-call was the signal of the Owl Patrol of the Cornwall Troop and when it sounded every member was in honor bound to drop everything and hurry to the totem-tree. Whereby it happened that Billy Darby, in the very midst of a last late piece of pie, astonished his family by dropping the same and dashing without a word from the

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dining-room. It was the first instance in the family-records where Billy had been known to set duty before pie. Even more sensational was the exit of Johnny Morgan. When the call came John was in the tub in the middle of a much-needed scrub. With a mighty splash he sprang out and grabbing his flannel shirt and trousers disappeared into the darkness with nothing on but soap-suds, dressing as he ran.

Beyond the brook came the long wailing howl of the gray timber wolf which Fred Perkins, leader of the Wolf Patrol, had spent many an evening in learning from old Jud Adams, the trapper, who could imitate every bird and animal which he had ever heard. Close beside the Grange was heard the yapping bark of a red fox. So perfectly was it done that by the time it had sounded nine times, every dog in Cornwall was barking fiercely in answer. Seven panting boys hurrying from different parts of the town knew, however, that it was only Buck Whittlesey of the Red Fox Patrol who was calling his band to their meeting place in the dark corner of the Grange Road.

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It was the Owl Patrol which first assembled. Billy, the pieless one, beat out the rest of his company by several seconds, closely followed by the still dripping Johnny, and in less than five minutes all eight of the Patrol were gathered beside a deep-carved figure on an oak-tree fondly believed by them to represent an owl.

As the last boy came panting into the little circle around the tree, Ted Bacon, the patrol-leader, in a few quick sentences told them of the offer of the lumber-king.

"Fellows," he said, "there is n't any question as to what we 'll decide to-night. We 've got a chance to get a cabin and we 're going to take that chance. The only thing that I want to make sure of is that one of the boys comes form us Owls. We ought to pick out our candidate and be ready to push him hard at the meeting."

There was a silence. Each boy looked dubiously at his neighbor. Johnny Morgan, still dripping, shivered a little in the sharp air and reflected that a month in the woods without clothes had a cold sound.

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"Of course the Wolves will put up Will Bright because he 's an eagle scout," said Billy Darby at last, "and I guess he ought to go, for he knows more about woodcraft and nature-stunts than the rest of us. What 'st he matter with you, Ted, for the other one?"

"That 's the stuff," assented Johnny Morgan, much relieved, and the vote was unanimous.

"Well," responded Ted, "if you fellows think I 'm the one to go, if I 'm elected, I 'll do my best to stick it out."

Similar caucuses were being held by the Wolves and Foxes and each patrol came to the hall prepared to support its own candidate. Mr. Sanford, the scoutmaster, who had been mainly responsible for the organization of the Troop, took charge of the meeting. He was te principal of the high school, although still in his twenties, and was much liked and respected by the boys. As soon as the meeting was called to order, Dick Johnstone, as chairman of the committee that had been selected to wait upon Mr. Donegan at his house, made his report as to what had happened there.

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"Our committee thinks," he ended, "that we ought to put up and not shut up."

There was a roar of applause.

"I move we accept Big Jim's offer," shouted Billy Darby at the top of his voice.

"Second the motion," came from all parts of the room.

Mr. Sanford paused before putting the motion.

"Boys," he said, "this is a pretty serious thing. we want a log-cabin, but the price that Mr. Donegan is asking is a high one. I don't know whether we can pay it. The two boys we send out are going to have a cold, hungry time. It will be much better not to try this thing than to try it and fail."

His words of caution, however, had no effect and the motion was carried unanimously. Then came the task of selecting the two boys who were to hold the honor of the Boy Scouts of Cornwall in their hands for one month.

"Mr. Chairman," said Buck Whittlesey, rising impressively, "I nominate Will Bright as one of the boys who are to represent the Boy Scouts of Cornwall in the test which Mr.

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p. 111 Donegan has fixed. Will is the only eagle scout we 've got. He has won twenty-one merit badges, including angling, archery, camping, forestry, bird-study, path-finding, pioneering and stalking. All of these ought to be a help to him. He's got good sand," went on Buck, "and will stand a lot of freezing and starving before he quits. Last and best of all," finished Buck, "he 's a Wolf and a member of the best patrol in the state."

Buck's speech was received with loud applause from his own patrol and equally loud hisses from the Owls and the Foxes. On the vote, in spite of the hisses, Will was elected unanimously.

Then came nominations for Will's companion. Fred Perkins was at once put up by the Wolves. The Owls nominated Ted Bacon and the Foxes, Buck Whittlesey. The debate was a heated one.

"How many fellows do you Wolves expect to get anyway?" inquired Billy Darby.

"You can't have two many," responded Boots Lockwood. "The best 's as good as any."

"Why, Buck Whittlesey is only just a first-

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class scout," responded Billy, scathingly. "The only out-of-door thing he knows is cooking and the chances are he 'd have mighty little of that to do."

Mr. Sanford with some difficulty shut off the debate and a vote was taken. It was a dead-lock, each patrol voting solidly for its own candidate. Mr. Sanford, as Chairman, rose to cast the deciding vote. Every boy in the room watched him anxiously.

"Scouts," he said, "it is my duty to cast the deciding vote, but before I do that I have a proposition to make. Why not let Will make his own choice? I think we ought to give him a chance to pick out the boy that he thinks he can depend on most."

There was a long pause. Then Buck Whittlesey jumped to his feet.

"Mr. Chairman," he said, "I think that 's a fair plan and I withdraw my name."

The other two candidates followed his example and a motion was then carried giving Will the right to choose his companion. He did not hesitate an instant.'

"I like all of the chaps that you fellows have

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named," he said, rising, "but if you put it up to me I choose Joe Couteau."

For a minute no one said anything. Then from all sides of the hall came objections through which Joe, a well-knit boy of fifteen, sat silent.

"Why, he only just pulled through his tenderfoot," said Johnny Morgan, disgustedly.

"He has n't lived here more than a month," opposed Fred Perkins.

"Well, fellows," said Will, after he had listened to them all, "I 'll tell you why I 'm taking Joe to be my side-partner in the woods. He has n't been here very long, but I 've got to know him pretty well. Joe knows more about the woods than all the rest of us put together. You see," he went on, "Joe 's an Athabascan Indian on his mother's side and his father was a French trapper. They 're both dead and he has no one who will mind whether he goes or stays. Is n't that right, Joe?" he said.

The boy nodded gravely, still without a word.

When the meeting adjourned the scouts crowded around the Indian boy with a re-

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spect that they had never shown him before. Fred Perkins wanted him to come back and spend the night at his house. Billy Darby, who specialized in Indians and could give a war-whoop and would have worn a scalp-lock if his mother had not persisted in cutting it off, followed Joe around in open-mouthed admiration. As for Ted Bacon, the leader of the Owl Patrol, he felt very much as he would if he had found Uncas in his patrol disguised as a farmer-boy. In spite of all their attentions Joe refused to talk. It was only from Will that they learned about the adventurous life that he had led with his tribe in the far North where the great MacKenzie River flows into the silent Arctic Sea, and how he had been clawed by a bear, chased by wolves, had seen herds of migrating caribou miles long, and hunted wood-bison, lynx, panthers, musk-oxen and other rare, delightful, dangerous beasts. Ted thought sorrowfully of the wasted opportunities which had been his to add to the fame and name of the Owl Patrol with such a member.

When the meeting finally adjourned, there

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was still much to be done during the three days before the twentieth of August. The consent of Will's parents and Joe's uncle had to be obtained. At first Mrs. Bright was horrified at the very thought of turning her boy into the woods without food, clothing or equipment.

"I honestly don't believe, Mr. Bright," said Mr. Sanford, "that your son will be in any danger. He and Joe between them know enough of woodcraft to keep themselves warm and fed. If they don't they can come out at any time."

It was Mr. Bright who cast the deciding vote. He had listened to Mrs. Bright's protests, Will's pleadings and Mr. Sanford's arguments in silence.

"Let him go," he said finally. "It will do the boy good to scratch along the best way he can. He 's got enough sense to come in if he is beaten. I think, Mother, that you 'll see him home in about three days and when he comes back he won't be so fussy about what he eats either."

It was an easier matter to obtain the

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consent of Joe Couteau's uncle, a little wizened-up Frenchman who owned a tiny farm over in the Hollow, as a deep valley between two rugged hills some three miles out of the village, was called.

"Sure I let him go," he said. "I have to. He go anyway."

CHAPTER II

PUTTING UP

The sun rose as usual on August 20th, just as if it were an ordinary day, instead of being the most important in the history of the Boy Scouts of Cornwall. At nine o'clock they marched sternly up the Donegan driveway, each patrol-leader carrying a little pennant at the end of his scout-stick showing the totem of the patrol, to the intense amusement of Mr. Donegan, who stood on his veranda and watched them come.

"Owls and wolves and foxes," he said. "Well, the boys that go out to-day will need to be all three."

In front of his house stood his big touring-car.

"Now, I plan," he went on, "to take the two you have chosen, your scoutmaster and your patrol-leaders, if that 's what you call 'em, twenty-five miles north into the woods. At

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the end of the trail I have a little shack with a telephone in it. When the boys get too cold and hungry to stand it any longer, they can find their way back to the shack and telephone me. I 'll send the car out for them with some clothes and food.

"I expect to hear that telephone ring early to-morrow morning," he went on reflectively, as they all climbed into the car.

On the way out the lumber-king seemed to be in a particularly bad humor.

"It 's a pity, Mr. Schoolteacher," he remarked to Mr. Sanford, "that you can't find anything better to do than to put these crazy notions into boys' heads. These two chaps seem like clever little fellows and if they were n't wasting their time fooling around carrying banners and making noises like wolves and owls, they might amount to something."

"I 'm not going to quarrel with you, Mr. Donegan," answered the Scoutmaster quietly. "We expect to gt a log-cabin and ten acres of good land out of you, so you can't start anything with me."

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The old man was not used to being answered back and he looked at Mr. Sanford and the grinning scouts blackly for a moment.

"Don't you count too much on that cabin and don't you sell any of that land until you get it," he replied dryly.

As the car whizzed northward, the sky became more and more overcast and by the time the party had reached the beginning of the wood-road it was raining, a cold northeast drizzle that promised to last for days. Big Jim was delighted with the change.

"I guess that telephone will ring to-night instead of to-morrow," he chuckled.

"Say, Mr. Donegan," spoke up Will, "you 've got three more guesses coming and I don't believe you 'd be right in any of 'em."

"Quiet, Will," said Mr. Sanford.

"O, let him talk," returned Mr. Donegan, "later on, this rain 'll wash the freshness out of him."

In spite of Will's brave words all the scouts watched the weather anxiously. It had turned cold and to spend the first night naked in a driving rain was not a pleasant prospect.

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Only Joe remained entirely unconcerned.

"Do you think we can stick it out in the wet?" whispered Will to him at last.

Joe only sniffed, yet it was such a fine big contemptuous sniff that his partner felt much encouraged.

Before long the car turned into the thick woods and ran lurchingly over a rough, moss-covered wood-road which led due north into the heart of the dripping forest. For over an hour the little party travelled through the dark trees. Suddenly the road ended in a tiny clearing. In the middle of this was a rough shack built of logs and bark with a stone chimney showing at one side. Inside were some bunks, a stone fire-place and a rude table on which stood a telephone. Mr. Donegan promptly tested this and found it in working order. In the meantime his chauffeur began to unpack a big hamper full of food.

"I 'll give you fellows one square meal," said Big Jim as the packages of eatables were piled up. "It 's the last that you get for thirty days if you really stay out--which you won't."

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The long ride had made everyone hungry and the way the scouts fell upon that defenseless lunch astonished the lumber-king.

"Say, son," he finally remarked sarcastically after Joe had swallowed his ninth sandwich, "try a sandwich. I don't want you to go into the woods hungry."

Joe's only reply was to eat three more.

"Now don't strain yourself," said Mr. Donegan again as Joe began on the chocolate cake. "You 're only going to be out thirty days."

Joe drank a couple of steaming cups of cocoa from the thermos bottle, ate another sandwich and two cookies, and at last stood up ready to start. No one spoke as the boys laid off their clothes and stood stripped for the test. Although Will was big and well set up, yet Joe with his wiry frame rippled over with tough muscles and tanned skin, seemed more fit.

"I 'll bet the little chap stays out longest," remarked Mr. Donegan to his chauffeur as the boys shook hands all around.

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"He ought to," said that individual, "he could go pretty night a month on what he ate just now."

The lumber-king's farewell address was short.

"Hike due north, boys," he suggested. "You 'll find the wildest stretch of country anywhere in this part of the world, and bear and lynx and wild-cats and perhaps a few panthers. Kill as many as you like," he went on kindly, "I can spare 'em. If you stay out, I shall want your word of honor that no one has helped you and that you have n't spoken to anyone. Any time you want to get some clothes, a square meal and a ride back home--telephone me from here."

The scouts gathered around Will and Joe and gave them a long scout-cheer and with the cold rain glistening on their bare skins, the two boys stepped off the trail into the dark woods. In a minute they were out of sight. As they went deeper and deeper in, they could hear the farewell honk of the horn of Mr. Donegan's car and then the whir of the engine which grew fainter and fainter until at last

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there was no sound except the beat of the rain on the west leaves above them and the crackle of the dry branches under their bare feet.

For about a mile they trotted along in perfect silence. Though wet, so long as they kept moving, they felt the cold but little. In spite of his rank as eagle-scout and his twenty-one merit badges and his advantage in age and size, Will found himself unconsciously turning to the younger, smaller boy for guidance. Most of his knowledge was book-knowledge. Joe had actually lived in the woods and had spent summers and winters wandering with his tribe through the barren lands of the far North where he had learned to face and overcome cold and hunger and fear.

There was an air of confidence about him that made Will more and more thankful that Joe was his companion instead of any of the others.

Before long the little deer-trail which the boys were following wound upward and they found themselves climbing the vast rock-strewn slope of Black Hill, one of the wildest and grimmest of the chain of low mountains

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that stretched away to the north. The light began to fade and the air became colder. Will hesitated as the path led straight up the mountain but Joe trotted along as if he knew exactly where he were going.

"Where shall we stop this first night, Joe?" asked Will at last. "How about looking for a cave?"

"No," said Joe, "cave he mighty cold in summer. Find white pine."

Think we can make a fire?" inquired the other as they went on, remembering that he had been able to do it only with the greatest difficulty even with specially prepared sticks, a buck-skin cord and dry tinder.

"No fire to-night," said Joe, briefly, "no find any dry punk."

What do you want to find a white pine for then?" asked Will a little crossly.

"Come on, you see," was all that Joe would answer.

Another hour and they were beyond the belt of hemlock and spruce and balsam fir which grew all along the lower slope. Here and there beech and maple showed with now

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then a small white-pine. As they were passing a smooth beech with low-hanging limbs which stood a little apart from the others, Joe stopped and catching hold of the branches, swung himself up into the tree. He climbed up the regular, smooth branches as easily as if he were walking upstairs and only stopped when he had reached the very tip-top. there he looked long through thd dimming light until finally he seemed to find what he had been waiting for and at once swung himself down and joined Will, who in the meantime had been running around the tree trying to keep warm.

"Well, old scout," panted the latter as Joe reached the ground, "glad you came down. I was kind of afraid that you were going to wrap a few beech-leaves around you and roost up there for the night."

"No," responded Joe briefly, "me no roost, me burrow to-night. Very cold before morning."

Turning off at right angles to the direction in which they had been going, Joe began to skirt the side of the mountain followed by

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Will at a dog-trot. Before long they came to a little grove of pines which he had seen from the tree-top. A few of these trees were towering old-timers but most of the grove were second-growth pines whose low limbs touched the ground. Joe bent down and crawled through the tangle of branches until he reached the side of a large tree in the very middle of the grove. All around were smaller trees while the ground beneath was thickly carpeted with dry pine-needles. The Indian then began to break off the dead boughs underneath the trees until he had a cleared space five feet in diameter. The hundreds of boughs covered with long needles which towered above them kept off and deflected the rain so that when they were under the trees hardly a drop reached them. Two of the largest boughs Joe slanted against the pine-tree and across them laid first a layer of dead branches. Then the boys broke off armfuls of the brittle live twigs covered with fragrant green needles. With these they wove a thatch over the dead limbs as rafters. The big trunk of the pine formed a solid back-wall

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while on both sides they drove short dead limbs into the soft ground and twisted in and out between them wattles of green boughs until they had a lean-to open only at one end which through frail was at least warm and dryer than the open air. When their shelter was finished both boys were well warmed up as they had worked at full speed. Then by Joe's directions they went out under the trees and took up armfuls of brown pine-needles until the lean-to was filled half way to the roof. With a chuckle, the Indian burrowed down under the dry needles until only his black head showed and was followed a few seconds later by the white boy, who dug himself out of sight like a woodchuck. Far overhead the wind whistled and moaned among the tree-tops and drove the rain hissing against the branches. Yet beneath their thatched roof and the over-lapping limbs the boys lay dry and warm under their brown coverlet.

"White pine he great tree," remarked Joe, snuggling a little deeper under the soft needles, "he always have blanket for Indian. We sleep here till to-morrow, then perhaps rain

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stop and we build fire. If not, we stay here until it does. Skin get hard, no feel cold."

"What about grub?" inquired Will.

"Plenty grub everywhere," replied Joe, "berries, roots, bark, then when rain stops we build fire, get fish, partridge, cook them up nice--"

"Say, Joe," interrupted Will, "that will be about all for you. I 'm hungry enough without hearing you talk of different kinds of eats. It 's a long time since lunch."

"Hungry," returned Joe, scornfully, "how you like go two, three, four days in winter with nothing at all to eat?"

"Have you done that?" asked Will, much impressed.

"Yes," responded Joe, "many times. Some years all rabbits die, then wolf, fox, lynx, weasel and Indian all have bad time. Indian live on dried fish, when that gone eat dog, moccasin, bark--anything."

By this time it was nearly dark and the wind howled down the mountainside like a wild beast and the rain swirled coldly through the tree-tops.

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"Go on, Joe, tell me about it," urged Will, "I 'm too cold and hungry to sleep. Don't give me any talk about good dinners and lots of food. What I want to hear to-night is starving and freezing to death. That 's what 's going to make me feel more comfortable.

Joe reflected.

"Indian children always cold, always hungry in winter-time," he said at last, "many of One time when I was little boy, I very hungry, nothing to eat for two, three days. My mother she hungry too, but she give me all food she can find. I get too weak to walk, she get too weak to carry me, tribe go off and leave us in little teepee beside frozen lake. She have old axe, knife and one fish-hook with bark-line, but not anything for bait. I cry and cry so hungry am I. I was only very little boy," Joe explained apologetically.

"Then she look everywhere but no bait. She take axe and cut hole through ice. Very weak, have to stop and rest. Then she sit down beside hole and cut a piece right out of her leg for bait and let blood run in water to

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make fish come. She put piece meat on book and catch big jack-fish something like what you call pickerel, only bigger," Joe explained.

"She pull it up, cut off piece, give it to me, eat big piece herself, tie up leg, use rest of fish for bait and catch enough to keep us alive till we found tribe again."

There was a long silence after Joe's story.

"That was a good kind of a mother to have," said Will at last. "Is she still living out there in the Northwest?"

"No," answered Joe, briefly. "She get sick one time when I away on a visit. I come back find tribe had gone off and left her. She dead. My father he dead too long before. Clawed up bad by bear. Then I leave tribe. Afterwards I walk and walk and walk and walk all the time east until at last I get to Cornwall where my father brother live."

Joe stopped talking and some way Will did not feel like asking him any more questions. The hours went by and the Indian's regular breathing showed that he was asleep. It was dark with the absolute blackness of a midnight forest on a stormy night. Although the boys

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were only a foot or so apart Will could not see Joe's face nor make out the nearby tree trunks crowded around the little door-way. He began to realize what the Bible meant when it spoke of the horror of great darkness. For the first time in his life it was not possible to have light at a moment's notice. To-night whatever happened in the blackness that boiled before his straining eyes Will must wait until dawn for light. Then he remembered uneasily that through the storm and the darkness, fierce, silent beasts were hunting among the trees. In spite of himself Will began to imagine the horror of being suddenly clutched in the dark by the great paws of some prowler of the night, perhaps the dreaded panther that Mr. Donegan had spoken about so lightly. Suddenly with a shock that made his scalp tingle and a cold wave run up and down his spine the boy heard something that made him sit up so suddenly that he sent a shower of pine-needles all over the shack. Again he heard it unmistakably and gasped breath as if suddenly plunged into a bath of ice-water. It was the sound of a light,

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stealthy foot-step in the brush and among the dense lower dead branches of the little grove where the boys were. Something was walking around and around the lean-to, coming nearer with each circle. Will could stand it no longer. Reaching over he touched Joe. Instantly the deep breathing stopped and Will knew that the Indian was wide awake.

"Joe," he whispered, "there 's something walking around outside."

Joe sat up and listened intently for a moment to the circling foot-step.

"Humph," he remarked, and lay down to go asleep again.

"Is--is it dangerous?" faltered Will at last, much relieved by Joe's actions, yet anxious to know more about their invisible visitor.

"Nothing you can hear is dangerous," returned Joe. "Dangerous animals always go quiet. This nothing but old porcupine."

"How can you tell?" inquired Will.

"No other wild thing dare walk around so loud in the night," explained Joe, "except Old Man Quill-Pig. He know that nothing touch

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him and so he don't care who hear him," and Joe went off to sleep again.

Will tried to follow his example but without success. After a time the foot-falls stopped and he could hear nothing but the wail of the wind and the hiss of the rain. He was at last just beginning to drop off when from overhead came a noise like the ringing of a bell. "Ting, ting, ting," it tolled, then "Ting, ting, ting," again, with a weird unearthly cadence.

"This is certainly some night," muttered Will to himself. "I wonder what 'II come next," and he turned over to wake up the Indian, only to find him sitting up, as much puzzled over the sound as himself.

"What is it, Joe?" Will whispered for the second time that night.

"Don't know," responded the other briefly. "I think 'um Indian devil."

"Are you scared, Joe?" queried Will again.

"Yes," admitted the Indian honestly.

Some way this answer gave back to Will a of lost courage.

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"Ting, ting, ting," went the unseen bell from a hundred feet above them in the rain-swept branches of a great pine. "Ting, ting, ting," it chimed not fifty feet away, as if it were flying towards them through the air.

"I 'm scared of panthers and bears," exclaimed Will, suddenly jumping up, "but I 'm not afraid of Injun devils--for there ain't such a thing," and he grabbed a dead bough and stepped shiveringly to the doorway of the shack.

"You lie quiet," counselled Joe, "let 'um devils alone, devils let you alone."

Will, however, moved out into the darkness beyond the lean-to, bound to make up in Joe's eyes for his fright over the porcupine.

"Ting, ting, ting," sounded the bell right over his head and from a limb above he could see two, round, fiery eyes gleaming through the dark. For a moment he was tempted to plunge back into the shack, but he reasoned to himself that anything that flew must be a bird or a bat. Only one kind of bird flies at night and has fiery eyes. Then it was that he suddenly remembered a description that he had

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read somewhere of that rare owl of the far North known as Richardson's owl.

"That 's what it is," he said aloud. "I remember the book says it makes a noise like a bell. You 're a thousand miles too far south, old chap," he went on, whirling his stick up into the tree. Without a sound the owl drifted off in the darkness on those silent, muffled pinions so fatal to many a little night wanderer.

"It was a Richardson's owl, Joe," said Will learnedly as he scrambled back into his hole in the pine-needles. "It 's lucky for you that your partner holds a merit-badge in bird-study," he went on. "I certainly am ashamed at you for mistaking a poor old owl for an Indian devil. Don't you know there is n't any such thing?"

"You know about Indian devils same as porcupine," commented Joe sarcastically. "Once I hear one," he went on after a pause, "I out in canoe, fish for trout with salmon eggs. Eggs spread oil long ways in water, trout come from all around crazy for 'em. We only about forty feet from shore. It very

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dark and quiet. Right under big tree something cry. It cry and cry and wail, first soft then very loud, then soft again like woman all alone out in black woods. The man I with grab paddle and push boat far out in lake. 'That Indian devil,' he say to me, 'tree goin' to fall.' In a minute great pine tree hundred feet high fall with smash in water right where we been. Man he say that Indian devil often cry like that just before great tree go down."

"Say, Joe," said Will, whose nerves had been somewhat shaken by the porcupine and the owl. "You cut out any more devil-stories. This is n't the night for 'em. Tell me about something cheerful."

A faint snore was the only answer which came from Joe's burrow and Will settled himself down to try to sleep. As the night wore on the air became colder and colder and although Will burrowed down as far under the needles as possible, yet his unhardened skin shivered and shook. Finally, in spite of himself, his teeth began to chatter like a pair of castanets until the sound woke Joe up.

"You cold?" he inquired.

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"Oh, no," replied Will peevishly, "I 'm just rattling my teeth together to pass away the time.

Joe made no answer in words to this attempt at sarcasm, but crept out of his hole, burrowed down beside Will and took him in his arms while he pressed his warm body against Will's shivering skin and piled a fresh supply of pine needles over them both.

"We roll up together and keep warm," said Joe "In winter hunting-camp, men and dogs always roll up together in one big ball." Gradually Will stopped shivering and before long the two boys were fast asleep in each other's arms under two feet of pine needles.

CHAPTER III

FOOD AND FIRE

The next thing that Will knew it was morning and a big blue-jay was squalling and hopping and scolding among the limbs of a tree above the shack. The rain had stopped, the sun was out and the air was clear and sharp and fragrant with the smell of pine, balsam and hemlock. There was something in it, too, which made Will think instantly of breakfast.

"Wake up, Joe," he yelled, kicking off pine needles in a tremendous shower.

But Joe was gone. Will looked out fr beyond the lean-to, but could see no trace his companion. For a minute he felt frightened.

"I hope none of those Indian devils I got hold of Joe," he said to himself as he the long wailing owl-call. Twice he sent the

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call quavering through the woods and up the mountainside, before there came back like a faint echo the signal of the Owl Patrol. Will started toward the sound which seemed to come from a deep hollow at the foot of the farther slope of the mountain. He hastened through the underbrush and soon found himself in a tiny game-trail which had been made by the wild-folk on their way to water, for it proved to be a short cut to a mountain-brook that splashed and gurgled through a little upland valley. As he reached the brook, Will saw Joe's lithe brown figure coming toward him. On his usually impassive face was a full-sized grin and in his right hand dangled from a forked stick slipped through its gills a monster trout that must have weighed all of four pounds.

"Hi there, old scout," shouted Will, rushing at him in great delight, "where did you get fish?"

For answer Joe threw back his head and from his puckered mouth sounded a deep "Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo," the note of the great-horned owl.

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"Stop that hooing," said Will, slapping the Indian vigorously on his bare back, "and tell me who gave you that fish."

"I did tell you," responded Joe with a final sepulchral "Hoo-hoo," "my totem give 'um us."

"Your totem," exclaimed Will in bewilderment.

"Sure," answered Joe, "owl, my totem and big owl he give Joe this fish."

"Tell me about it," insisted Will.

"Well," replied Joe, "the time to get things is early morning. Indian hunters always wake up before light. I wake up, but you all curled up round and grunty like woodchuck. I follow trail down to water. Over in long grass in clearing when it get light I see something move. I creep up very quiet. Big horned owl he stand in grass right close brook. He know trout feed close to shore in early morning. He watch trout. I watch him. Old man owl he grab something in the water quick. Great splash, great flutter, owl he jerk, fish jump and owl clinch in other claws and pull and haul and flutter and fly

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until pretty soon up in grass he land nice big trout. Then I run down path at him and I yell, wave arms and jump high and old owl he make me present big fish. Say, 'Take it home, eat most yourself, give some, perhaps tail, to lazy, grunty woodchuck.'"

Sure enough on the broad crimson-flecked back of the great trout were four deep holes where the steel-like talons of the owl had gripped the struggling fish.

"Gee, Joe, you 're a peach," exclaimed Will.

Joe made no answer but hurried along the trail and seemed to be looking for something. Suddenly his eye caught what he wanted. Near where the trail sloped up from the water grew a large red cedar. Handing the trout to Will to hold, Joe pulled off the dry outer bark. Then with a sharp piece of quartz which he had picked up by the brookside, he made two parallel jagged gashes for nearly a yard down the tree-trunk and pulled off long strips of the tough inner bark. Carefully splitting these into equal sized lengths he knotted them together and in a very few minutes had braided them into a tough, smooth,

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cord. Then Joe searched up and down the brook-bed for some time until finally he found a piece of jagged quartz with a sharp cutting edge. With two large hard stones, he pounded the part above the edge until he had ground out a hand-hold and had a rude stone-chisel. Over the edge of the brook grew a huge balsam fir. One of its roots had grown through the brook-bank and hung dead and dry. Joe grasped an end and pulling with all his might, split off a long, flat slab. With his quartz chisel he cut in one side of this a notch half an inch wide and about three-fourths of an inch deep. At the angle of the notch with some difficulty, with the same sharp piece of quartz which he had used for cutting off the cedar-bark, he managed to bore a shallow hole. Then with his chisel he split off from the root a splinter of wood about foot and a half long and a little less than inch thick. This splinter he rubbed and chipped and ground with his rude tools he had made a long pencil of wood at each end. This was the fire-drill. One end was thrust into the shallow hole which he

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had made in the balsam block and over the other end he fitted a small flat piece of wood with a little hole in the center into which went the sharpened upper point of the upright drill. Breaking off a dry, hard branch, Joe bent it into a short bow a little over two feet long and making a notch at either end with his chisel, fastened on loosely the braided cedar bow-string. In the meantime, under Joe's directions, Will had been preparing tinder. He managed to cut out a few slivers of the dry cedar wood and shredded this between two stones until it was a mass of tiny splinters. A pinch of this he wrapped in a piece of the loose dry outer bark of the cedar-tree. When this was done, he peeled off a piece of white birch-bark which burns like oiled paper and carefully tore it into a handful of fine slivers. When this was ready Joe passed the loose bow-string once around the erect fire-drill which took up all of the slack, and then resting his foot on the fire-block and his left hand on the upper drill socket, he pressed the drill firmly into the little hole in the fire-board and began draw the bow back and forth with steady

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even strokes at full length. This whirled the drill around and around in its pit and made it bore slightly into the dry wood of the fire-block. Gradually Joe's strokes became faster and faster, but without losing their rhythm or causing the drill to stop for an instant. As the hard stick whirled back and forth more and more rapidly, a little stream of brown wood-dust fell on the fire-board around the whirling spindle. Faster and faster whirled the drill until the dust began to turn black and a little cloud of smoke rose from it. Joe gave a last few swift strokes and suddenly blew on the smoking pile. Instantly a tiny glowing coal showed in the heap. Taking a pinch of the tinder from Will the Indian held it against the spark and again blew until the dry, shredded wood burst into a blaze. Over this he built a tiny teepee from slivers of birch-bark, dry dead twigs of mountain-laurel and in a moment Fire, that ancient friend of man, stood between the boys and man's oldest enemies--darkness and cold. On the slope grew a white ash tree with several low, dead limbs. These Will managed to break off by swing-

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ing on them and then with the aid of a heavy stone shattered them into lengths. Five minutes later a hot, clear flame was roaring three feet into the air. It seemed to Will that his chilled body would never have enough of that delicious heat. Leaving him toasting first one side and then the other, Joe made a short trip along the brook and came back with a mass of soft, gray clay. In this he wrapped the fish until it looked like a big gray cocoon, and with a pointed twig made air-holes at either end. Then digging a hollow among the embers he covered the clay six inches deep with the great glowing coals that white-ash makes when burned, and heaped more fire-wood on top.

Will had watched the operation with intense interest.

"What 'll we do while we wait?" he inquired hungrily.

"Eat," answered Joe concisely, starting for a clearing that showed through the woods some distance away from the brook.

"Oh, Boy!" shouted Will dashing after him, "just show me the eats--I 'll do the rest!"

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Joe led the way until they came to a stretch of burned land left by some forest-fire of by-gone years. Among the piles of tree-trunks and brush-wood grew myriads of the berries which always spring up in the wake of forest-fires. There were huckleberries with six large stones which crackle under one's teeth, and blueberries, whose many stones are too small to be noticed when eaten. Among them were the balloon-shaped black-huckleberry, glossy black and tasteless, the tiny dwarf-blueberry, mawkish-sweet, the southern huckleberry whose leaves pointed are at both ends and the high blueberry, six to fifteen feet high covered with crowded clusters of vivid blue fruit. Best and largest all was the luscious dangleberry, a great berry hanging in blue pendants from the end of long stems, and growing nearly as large as a small cherry. All these botanical facts came later from Will as a result of his merit-badge study in forestry. For the present the boys preferred to gobble rather than botanize. They fell upon the first patch like a whirl-

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wind and crammed handfuls of big, sweet berries into their hungry mouths.

"Say, Joe," mumbled Will, after a few moments of stuffing, "I could die doing this," but Joe was too busy scooping in dangleberries make any reply. The boys ate and ate until the first edge of their hunger had been dulled by a quart or so apiece of assorted berries. Beyond them as far as they could see stretched patches of heavy-laden bushes.

"If we don't find anything else we can live on these alone for a month," exulted Will starting in on a fresh patch.

As he worked his way towards a small ridge, the boy noticed a deep, fresh track in the soft mould ahead of him like the foot-print which a small bare-footed boy would make if he weighed about two hundred pounds. The strange trail puzzled Will and he stopped eating to follow it. The wind was blowing toward him from the tracks and his bare feet made no noise on the soft ground. As his head came to the top of the ridge, he saw sitting directly in front of him by a thick patch

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of high blueberry bushes, scooping with both paws the berries into a mouth filled with sharp white teeth, a glossy black animal that to the boy's startled eyes looked as big as a cow. A dry huckleberry branch broke under Will's foot making a tiny crackling noise. It was enough.

"Hoof! woof!" remarked Mr. Bear, and in another second he was dashing away through the brush, tearing up rocks, crashing through branches and throwing behind him showers of earth and leaves with his sharp claws as he broke into a lumbering but extremely swift gallop. The last that the boy-scout saw of him as he went over the next ridge was a pair of wrinkled little black feet dangling in a cloud of dust and leaves that floated in his wake.

"Well," soliloquized Will as he hurried back to Joe, "I 'm blame glad that bear wu going instead of coming."

"He big bear," said Joe a few minutes later as he examined the tracks. "His skin make nice blanket."

The two started back to the camp keeping a

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sharp lookout for any other black berry-pickers. By the time they reached the shack the fire had burned down and the big clay ball was covered deep with glowing coals. Joe poked them away and sniffed. There came up from the embers a savory fragrance which made the mouths of both boys water.

"It done," said Joe briefly, rolling out the fire-hardened ball with a long stick. Then he tapped the clay until it broke away in big pieces and there lay the trout roasted to a turn. Using thick white-oak leaves for plates and dry sticks for knives and forks, the boys fell upon the fish like hawks. The thin scaleless skin curled off in brown flakes showing the steaming, delicious close-grained flesh underneath. Opening the fish carefully, the entrails came away unbroken leaving nothing but the sweet, white meat. Fifteen minutes later all that was left of that four-pounder were the bones. Joe carefully picked out all of the longest and sharpest of these to be used as needles and pins later on, while Will busied himself in making a calendar with Joe's quartz knife. It did not take long, be-

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ing only a straight short stick of the soft white pine. On this stick Will planned to cut a notch each morning. After the thirtieth notch they would be free to come back to Cornwall and civilization again. The calendar finished Will built up the fire again and began to plan for the future. In that he showed the difference between the nature of an Indian and a white man. Generations and generations ago Will's ancestors had learned to live for the future as well as for the present. Joe's forebears had starved and frozen for hundreds of years because they had not learned that first lesson of civilization, that the future will not take care of itself. No one could meet the immediate present better than Joe. No one had less thought for the days that were to come. Accordingly it was with some difficulty that Will could get the Indian's attention for his plans. The day was one of those hot, still days which come in August--the high tide of summer before it begins to ebb into the fall. Will's skin, as Joe had promised, was already beginning to harden and before long he felt entirely comfortable in the

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open air without clothing. Yet, he knew that there would be cold and frosty days and nights ahead and made up his mind that he must have some covering before many days had passed. Before doing anything else, however, the boys examined the hurried lean-to which they had thrown together the night before. If they had taken a month to select a camping place they could not have found a better one than the site which Joe had hurriedly chosen in the rainy twilight of the day before. The little group of pines under which their shack stood, was on a knoll which sloped down to the mountain-brook a few yards below. At that point the clear cold water widened into a rocky basin which made a natural bathing-pool. The lean-to had been well built in spite of their haste but the boys spent their first hour after breakfast in strengthening it at various points, substituting, where possible, live branches for the dead ones which they had used the night before, until it was a cozy, snug, little house fragrant and spicy with a smell of the fresh, green, pine boughs and twigs from it was made and thatched.

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After this carpentry work, at Will's suggestion, they started after more provisions. Joe taught Will one of the simplest-known ways of catching fish. They walked up the main brook toward its source until they met a little stream flowing into it, perhaps from a nearby spring. This they followed, the trout darting ahead of them all black, and gold and crimson in the clear shallow water. At some narrow part of this stream the boys walled in a pool with piles of stones and small rocks. This pool they filled up with flat stones until the water in it was only a few inches deep, building up the sides, however, until they were fully a foot above the water. Then making a detour away from the brook they came out some fifty yards above this fish-trap. Stepping into the brook both boys waded rapidly down with a stick in each hand, splashing the water ahead of them and driving the fish down-stream. By the time they reached the shallow, walled-in pool it wts packed to over-flowing with small, plunging1 darting trout from four to six inches long. So thickly were the fish jammed into the shal-

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low water that all the boys had to do was to wade in and catch as many as they needed with their hands. By the time that they had made two or three of these traps, they had caught over a hundred small trout. These they carefully strung on long willow twigs thrust through the gills of the fish and started back to camp at noon. Joe showed Will how to broil the fish on the top of flat, thin stones laid over the fire as broilers. Others they roasted on long green twigs and made another hearty meal of fish with blueberries for dessert. The rest of the afternoon was taken in building a stone smoke-house being nothing more than a chimney some three or four feet high with an opening at the bottom for fire. At intervals in this chimney they made racks of green twigs on which were laid layers of dressed split trout. Then a small fire was kindled below on which were thrown strips of green hemlock bark and wet willow wood, all of which made a dense smoke. With these simple methods of catching and curing fish they soon had a great store of smoked fish which they carefully stored away in swinging

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dishes made from white birch bark and fastened a safe distance from the ground in a dry place in the pines. So long as it was in a swinging basket, Joe told Will, no one of the forest-folk would dare to touch it fearing some trap in the hanging cords made of twisted cedar bark.

Another day they tramped up to a white birch tree which they could see jutting out from between two rocks on the mountainside. Gashing the smooth white sides of the tree with sharp bits of quartz, the boys soon succeeded in peeling off slabs two or three feet long of the beautiful bark. The outside was dry and tough and chalky-white, while underneath were layers of pink and yellow, flexible bark. Out of these the boys twisted huge cornucopias which would hold several quarts of berries. They filled these from the bushes in the burned grounds until they had nearly a bushel of dangleberries and different kinds of blueberries. These they spread out on strips of birch bark on a high flat rock to dry in the hot sun, and soon had a goodly store of dried berries safely swung in the same tree with the smoked fish.

CHAPTER IV

THE DEATH TRAP

"Get up," said Will, raising his head from the great pile of pine-needles in which he had burrowed for the night. The rim of the rising sun was just showing above Black Hill.

"Get up," said Will again, poking Joe in the ribs with one foot through the needles.

"Why?" grunted the Indian.

"Because," explained Will, "this is the greatest day of the year. I don't want you to miss a minute of it. This, Joe," he went on impressively, "is my birthday."

"Ugh," grunted Joe, "very bad day, indeed. I go asleep again and try and forget it. No wake me up," and Joe curled himself into a round ball, dexterously stealing the greater part of Will's pile of pine-needles as he did so.

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"Bad day, eh," returned Will indignantly, "I 'll show you. I 'll wake you up all right," and pulling Joe out of his burrow with a tremendous tug he began to roll him down the slope toward the bathing-pool. The Indian kicked and yelled but Will had him going and with one tremendous push rolled him down the soft bank and into the pool. Joe struck the water with a splash and a whoop.

"That 'll teach you," said Will from up the bank, "to be more respectful about one of the great days in American history," and he stood on the bank waiting for Joe to come up. Strangely enough after the first splash there was no sign of the Indian in the dark foamy water of the pool. Half a minute passed and Will became anxious thinking that something might have happened to Joe. He was leaning over the edge of the pool about to dive in when he was suddenly seized in a strong grip. Joe had swum under water until he was concealed by the ripples near the falls at the outer edge of the pool and then, still under water, had gone around a little bend and noiselessly scrambling up on the

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bank, had come up from behind on his unsuspecting companion.

"Heap bad day," he grunted. "I teach you roll old Joe into water," and with a tremendous heave he sent Will flying out into the pool. Every time he tried to swim back Joe would splash such quantities of water into his face that he would have to take to the pool again. Finally, gasping and nearly strangled, Will made a rush, broke through the barrage and clinched. The boys wrestled around on the dry bank until they were both weak from laughing and dry enough to get breakfast. As usual it consisted of trout and blueberries.

"Gee, Joe," remarked Will after finishing his sixth trout, "this fish-food some way does n't seem to stay with a man. I wish we had some real meat."

"I think there be pond over next ridge," responded Joe, pointing away from Black Hill. "Perhaps we find deer there."

"Much good it would do us if we did," grumbled Will. "We have n't got anything to kill a deer with."

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"You come along," returned Joe patronizingly, "I show you."

Sure enough half a mile down the slope between two little ridges they came upon a small shallow pond nearly filled with lily pads. Joe at once made a long detour through the woods so as to approach the pond to leeward. Stealing silently through the pine-woods the boys at length came upon a deer-trail which wound through dense thickets of mountain-laurel directly down to the water. Joe led the way toward the shore, using the greatest precaution not to make a sound. As they came around a bend, right ahead of them in a little cove not fifty feet away, well out in the shallow pond, stood a young buck which seemed to be grubbing up roots. The wind, what there was of it, was blowing directly from the buck to the boys whose brown bodies were well hidden by the bushes. Joe motioned Will to conceal himself in some dense brush on the other side of a curve in the trail. The boy obeyed the Indian's motioned directions but could scarcely

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keep from laughing when he saw Joe searching the ground for stones.

"He might just as well use a bean-shooter," thought Will to himself.

The Indian finally found three or four pebbles which seemed to suit him and carefully concealed himself in the bushes just opposite to where Will lay. Then with great care he threw a stone clear over the deer so that it fell with a splash in the water beyond him. Like a flash the buck lifted his head and viewed the lake with suspicion. When another and still another splash came nearer and nearer to him from the lakeside, he evidently decided that he was being exposed to some submarine attack. With a couple of wallowing jumps he reached dry land and swung up the game-trail at a slow trot, evidently intending to retire to some dark safe place back among the dense laurel thickets. As he came opposite the bush behind which Will lay the Indian suddenly sprung out like a panther and gripped the astonished young buck by his budding horns. Twisting his neck and throwing his weight on

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the animal, the boy managed to hold him in spite of his desperate struggles. Will leaped into the fray from the other side, armed with a heavy knobbed section of an old pine stump which had caught his eye. As the deer struggled to get away Will brought his rude club down with a crash right between the animal's eyes and the buck dropped dead with hardly a quiver. Tying the legs together with strips of cedar bark, the boys hoisted him upon a long pole and with much difficulty and many halts to rest, staggered back to camp with their first game.

"You certainly are the great old hunter," remarked Will as they finally laid down the fat buck for the last time not far from their lean-to.

"Birthday present for you," was Joe's only response, although he was evidently delighted at his companion's praise. Using bits of sharp quartz which they picked up from the brook bed, the boys skinned, dressed, and hung the buck under Joe's directions, reserving a plump, juicy haunch for the mid-day meal. Then it was that Will for

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the first time aroused Joe's admiration by showing the latter a new idea in cooking. The Indian had planned to broil steaks of venison on long green twigs but Will had set his mind on having the whole haunch cooked in the very best way of all. He repeated to Joe a verse which he had often heard his mother use:

"Fried meat is dried meat,
Boiled meat is spoiled meat,
Roast meat is most meat."

While Joe built up a roaring cooking-fire from the hardest, dryest wood he could find, Will cut a forked stick and fixed it in the ground some little distance from the fire. Through the crotch of this stick he thrust a long pole, one end of which went into the ground while the top extended out well above the blaze. To the end of this pole he fastened a twisted cord of cedar-bark, tying the other end to the roast so that the meat hung close to the fire. Right in the middle of the cord and almost at right angles, he fastened a flat, thin paddle which he had fashioned from a

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strip of bark. As the wind caught this fan it slowly wound the cord up. When it reached a certain point the weight of the haunch unwound the cord which again the push of the wind wound up once more. Between the wind and the weight, the roast continually twirled round and round in front of the blaze. Underneath Will set a little birch-bark dish to catch the drippings with which he carefully basted the spinning roast until it was done to a turn. This labor-saying invention especially appealed to lazy Joe.

What a meal that was! There is no meat that takes the place of a rich, tender haunch of prime venison. The old trappers always believed that buffalo-hump and venison-haunch were the two strongest meats that a man could eat. To the fish-fed boys it seemed the very essence of good food and they did not stop eating until every scrap of meat wag gone and the bones had been picked clean and well scraped.

Joe had carefully saved every bit of the skin and after dinner, fleshed it with a quartz-

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scraper, and rubbing it with a mixture of soft clay and the brains of the deer, stretched it out and hung it on a long pole which he fastened between two pine trees, lashing it with strips of cedar-bark.

"I get some thread this afternoon," said Joe at last to Will who had been watching him admiringly. "Later on I make you nice shirt."

"Where do you expect to find any thread around here?" inquired Will incredulously.

Joe made no answer but began to extract the tough, white sinews from the legs of the deer.

"No," said Joe to Will's inquiry, "this make good cord. Later on I use them for bowstring but I get my thread at another shop."

Storing away the sinews in the cabin, Joe beckoned Will to follow and started up the mountainside.

"You find me big, black spruce," he directed.

"All right," said Will, and in a few minutes he stopped before a large tree.

Joe grunted scornfully.

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"This white spruce. No good at all," he said. Breaking off a twig he bade Will notice that the needles stood up nearly perpendicular so that the twig felt rough to the touch. A few steps farther on he halted opposite another spruce tree. Breaking off a twig he showed Will that the bent needles felt smooth instead of bristly when stroked. Grubbing in the ground the Indian soon pulled up a slender root nearly four feet long and about the size of a pipe-stem. Splitting one end of this with his quartz knife and taking a half between the thumb and fore-finger of each hand, he rapidly separated its whole length into two equal halfs. There was a great knack in this for when Will tried, the split ran off immediately to one side and he only got a short piece. Joe peeled the bark from each half by pressing a short piece of cedar-bark against the rounded side with both hands while he drew the root upward with his teeth. In a minute he had two, tough flexible cords. The Indian kept up this thread-making until be had a store sufficient to make several suits of clothes instead of two buckskin shirts.

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This he stored away along with the sinews in a little pocket in the thatch of the lean-to. There were still several hours of day-light left and the boys decided to take their birch-bark buckets and pick them full of berries for supper. Before doing this, however, Joe made another visit to the brook-bed and after considerable hammering and pounding, came back with two sharp heavy fragments of white quartz for cleavers. With these they soon cut the carcass into quarters which, under Joe's directions, they hung from a rack above the skin. Joe told Will it would not be necessary to smoke this meat, for venison has the property of keeping when hung anywhere in the dry open air.

A few minutes later both boys were in the heart of the berry-patch filling their bark pails with both hands. Suddenly Joe called his companion's attention to a decayed log covered with a creeping evergreen plant with small oval-pointed leaves, whose stems were studded with snow-white berries.

"That's the creeping snow berry," said Will, glad to air his botanical knowledge.

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"That," said Joe, "is Indian tea plant. Pick all leaves you can find and we have nice pot of tea to-night."

Accordingly the boys both picked a bunch of the spicy aromatic leaves before they began their berry picking.

Then they moved over to a new part of the clearing which they had not visited before. There berries of all kinds grew in wonderful quantities. Picking them in double handfuls; it was not long before their rude pails were filled to the brim with shiny, solid, ripe berries. Simultaneously each picker decided to pick a few berries for immediate home consumption. Picking and gobbling like the bear that Will had seen, it was not long before each boy had disposed of a quart or so of miscellaneous berries. Will was the first to stop.

"Say, scout," he called, "leave a few for the bears. What are you trying to do--eat up the whole patch in one day?"

Joe grinned and arose from the ground where he had been sitting, luxuriously scooping berries into his open mouth, and started

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over to join his partner. As he stepped around a big bush there suddenly sounded in front of him a keen, thin, insistent whirring noise much like the note of the upland grasshopper but louder and some way menacing. Will heard the sound too.

"Look out, Joe!" he shouted. "There's 's [sic] a rattler near you."

It was too late. On the other side of the bush was a coiled circle made of ridged scales of sulphur-yellow and dark brown. It was the death-trap of the grim timber-rattlesnake, that ruler of the dark places of the forest. From the circumference of the coil eleven rat-ties whirred in a haze of rapid movements. Set in the center was a cruel heart-shaped head with fierce, motionless, black eyes with golden pupils whose oval shape is the hall-mark of the fatal family of the pit-vipers which includes our only venomous northern snakes--the rattlesnake and the copperhead. Between the horrid lidless eye and the nostril, was the deep pit which gives its name to this deadly family.

Before Joe could stop himself, his bare foot

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crashed through the bush and landed directly in the center of the whirring coils. The ghastly mouth gaped and two long glistening, crooked fangs, sharp as needles, thrust themselves straight out like poisoned spear-points from the movable ridge of white gum which concealed them. Half-way down each fang was a tiny hole from which oozed the yellow, fatal venom. There was a flash of the snake's head and both fangs pierced Joe's brown skin just above the knee and the great serpent was back again in coil almost before the eye could follow its movement. Joe groaned and leaped back just in time to avoid a second lightning-like lunge. Snatching up a heavy dead bough, the Indian struck the snake with all his strength--once, twice, three times. The first blow broke its back and while it was writhing, hissing and rattling in a vain attempt to coil and strike again, the boy, panting with rage, beat the hissing head deep into the ground with repeated blows. It was all over in an instant and when Will reached his companion, Joe was standing scowling down on the still writhing snake with a curious white

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pallor showing in his face under the brown skin. The air was heavy with the musky smell that an angry rattlesnake gives off.

"Did he get you?" Will cried out.

Joe pointed at two deep, stab marks above his left knee from which tiny drops of blood were oozing. Then it was that Will showed the value of his scout training.

"Let me have that stone-knife quick," he said shortly.

Joe passed it over without a word from the berry basket where he had put it when they left the camp. From his own basket Will tore the length of twisted cedar-bark which he had fastened there for a handle. Tying it around Joe's leg just above the fang marks he knotted it as tightly as he could and then twisted a stick into the cord, turning it until the braided bark sank deep into Joe's flesh, removing it after five minutes to avoid gangrene.

"Now, I 'll have to hurt you, Joe," said Will, "but you 'll hurt a great deal worse in a few minutes if I don't do this."

"Go on," grunted Joe impassively.

Taking the sharp quartz edge, Will gashed

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each puncture deeply, cutting down to the very bottom of the stab wound. The blood gushed out from each gash. Kneeling down Will sucked the wounds with all his might, spitting out the poisoned blood every few seconds.

"Now, you must hurry back to the camp," he said finally. "The worst is yet to come."

"Wait," said Joe and he stepped over to the snake which was still writhing feebly. "I take him skin for good-luck belt," he remarked briefly, taking the rattlesnake up cautiously behind the crushed head. It was fully five feet long and as thick around as the boy's forearm.

The two hurried back to the camp and Will blew the fire into a blaze, thrusting in a hard stick of seasoned ash and when the end became a glowing coal, carefully cauterized the wounds to the very bottom. All through this operation Joe never showed by word or sign what he was suffering. When it was over Will looked whiter and weaker than the Indian.

"Say, old scout, you 're right there with the

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nerve," he said admiringly, when the last horrible, hissing bit of amateur surgery had been finished.

"That nothing," returned Joe briefly.

Then Will unloosed the ligature and washed the place carefully out with cold water.

"Now, you sit around and be good," he said. "I think we caught this in time. It'll probably swell and hurt a lot but you 'll not lose your leg or your life."

Sure enough the injured leg did swell and by night-fall was much puffed up and very painful. Will built up a big fire and let it burn down to a mass of glowing coals. Then, under Joe's direction, he took a great sheet of birch-bark free from knots and bent it into a trough-shaped dish, pinning the folds together with sharp thorns that he broke off from a nearby white-thorn bush. This bucket he filled with water and set it on the bed of coals, taking care not to let the coals touch the bark above the water-line. To his surprise the dish did not catch afire and in a short time the water was boiling vigorously.

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Leaving Joe beside the fire, Will hurried through the woods to a little stretch of marshland near the deer trail where he remembered to have seen patches of yellowish-gray sphagnum moss growing abundantly. This moss is a natural antiseptic dressing. Soaking handfuls of it in the boiling water, Will poulticed Joe's leg with layer after layer of the soft moss. Will kept up the fire at full blaze all night and at intervals brewed dishes of spicy, hot snow-berry tea. By the next morning Joe was much better.

CHAPTER V

THE QUILL PIG

Although Joe's good constitution had pulled him through, yet the life and death struggle had left its marks. His face looked paler and he was a long time in getting back his full strength. In order to keep him quiet, his medicine man suggested that they spend two or three days in carpentry, weaving, tailoring and other light work before starting out on any of the hunting and exploring trips which they had planned. Accordingly Joe laid in such large stores of cedar-bark that he flayed every arborvitae tree in the neighborhood of the camp. In the meanwhile Will spent the time in getting a supply of fire-wood. Hour after hour he would break and pile up masses of seasoned hickory and flowering dog-wood which has a bark scaled like the skin of a lizard and burns

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with an intense heat. Will also broke up, with heavy stones, quantities of dead horn-beam or iron-wood--that little tree whose heavy wood is ridged like the muscles of a man's arm, and now and then a small trunk of the chestnut-oak whose notched leaves look like those of the chestnut and whose wood, next to hickory, makes the best fuel in the forest. For kindling he gathered sheets of birch-bark and fagots of dead twigs of the mountain-laurel. For the campfire he collected heavy knots of balsam-fir and hemlock which he dug out of rotted old stumps. For this same fire he invented a labor-saving scheme which Joe admired nearly as much as he had Will's patent roaster. This was a kind of chute made by piling the wood on a sloping bank which led down to the fire-place. Will penned in the pile with stakes so arranged that by drawing out a cross-bar one or more logs would roll down to the edge of the fire-place, pressed forward by the slanting mass behind. In the meantime Joe had cut and woven his cedar-bark into pliable strips each one five or six feet in length and half an inch wide.

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Then building up the fire he set on two large birch-bark kettles of water to boil while he cooked the bark and young wood of the stag-horn sumac which bears big bunches made up of hundreds of soft, sticky, intensely sour berries. This bark and wood he steeped in one of the kettles until he had a bubbling pot of rich yellow dye. In the other kettle he put handfuls of the crushed roots of the flowering dog-wood which soon turned the boiling water into that brilliant color known as "Indian red." Filling up his dye-pots from time to time, Joe stained all of his woven bark-strips red and yellow alternately. When they were done and dry he called for Will who was still working on his wood-pile.

"Well, boss, what now?" inquired the medicine man, hurrying up.

"You get fitted for pants."

"Sure," responded Will obligingly. "Let 's see the cloth."

At the first sight of the brilliant colored strips Will gave a hollow groan.

"Take 'em away," he exclaimed, covering his eyes with one hand.

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"What the matter with you?" said Joe much incensed. "You make your own pants."

"Now, don't get sore," said Will soothingly. "I only hoped that you had something quieter. You see, old scout," he explained, "it takes a good looking chap like you to get away with red and yellow checked jeans."

"You wear red and yellow pants or you don't wear any," was Joe's last word on the subject.

"All right," responded Will resignedly, "go as far as you like. I only hope they fade some before the month is over."

Joe hurriedly knotted a loose bark-ring around each of Will's legs just above the ankle. To these he fastened a score or so of alternate red and yellow strips and when he had a close circle all around the leg, began to plait them together in clusters of fours in a curious network. It was nothing more than the fishnet knot which all of the northern Indian tribes understand, except that the knots were on the outside and set much closer together than in a net. Joe knotted and twisted and wove so quickly and certainly that before Will

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had even time to get tired of standing, he found himself wearing a pair of long red and yellow bark trunks or trousers. To be sure they were of a somewhat open pattern, something like one of Will's cherished crocheted neckties and until he got used to them they were even scratchier than flannel underclothes. Still they were a great improvement over going naked through briers and brush. The rest of the day Joe spent in fashioning himself a similar pair with some assistance from Will on the rear elevation of the same.

The next morning Joe spent in blacksmithing. Taking the horns of the buck, with some bits of rough, sandy stone he filed off the prong of each horn and then leaving a place for a handle, ground the remainder into a keen cutting edge between two gritty stones. Each handle he wound closely with white cord made from inner birch-bark. When this was done each knife looked as if it had a round nfia handle and when a skinning point had been ground on each, he had two serviceable hunting knives. While he was working over these and fashioning his dearly won

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rattlesnake skin into a belt, Will started on an exploring trip up the mountainside. He had hardly gone a quarter of a mile from the camp when along the slope he heard the clatter of hoofs and panting, growling noises. Suddenly in front of him, from behind the trees, flashed out a wounded doe. She had evidently been shot by some hunter. Right on her trail lumbered a black bear nearly full-grown. Neither of the two saw Will standing in the shadow of a large pine. Just as the two came opposite to him the bear gained enough to deliver a smashing, fatal blow with one of his armed paws, which brought the poor doe dying to her knees. As her black pursuer leaped on her with a rumbling growl, he caught sight of Will not twenty feet away. With a fierce snarl he sprang away. Involuntarily Will raised both arms and gave a tremendous yell. If the bear had been older there would have been trouble. As it was he slunk reluctantly off through the trees leaving his prize to the boy. Will gave him no chance to change his mind but hoisting the still quivering body on his back staggered off

Neither of the two saw Will standing in the shadows

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on the way, along which he came, back to the camp. Joe was overjoyed at this new gift of the gods.

"You certainly great medicine man," he declaimed, "make old man bear catch deer for you. Now, we each have fine buckskin shirt," he promised as the boys skinned the deer with their new knives.

Then came another season of tanning and drying, which ended only when Joe finally produced two beautifully cured skins, supple and soft as only real buckskin is. Shirt-making was easier than the other branch of tailoring. All Joe did was to cut two arm-holes, a series of button-holes and sew on firmly with sinews a row of square wooden buttons which he whittled out of soft birch-wood and each boy had a loose, armless hunting shirt. There was enough left of the hides to fashion a couple of pairs of buckskin moccasins, which, although their feet had become well hardened by this time, the boys found a great comfort.

It was a morning or so after that Will suddenly stopped in the middle of his break-

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fast with half a roasted trout in one hand.

"Say, Joe, there 's something wrong about this grub. It don't seem to touch the right spot."

"Salt," grunted Joe.

"That 's just what 's the matter," decided Will, nibbling reflectively, "has a kind of a cold taste."

"You find hickory tree this morning," advised Joe. "Get me strip of inside bark. I make food taste right."

Accordingly when breakfast was over, the white boy started along the mountain leaving his partner curled up on a bed of pine-needles before the fire, putting the finishing touch to his snake-skin belt. The air was warm and soft and spicy and as Will loped along through the trees in his new moccasins, he felt the joy of living which a week in the open had put into his blood. At first he saw no signs of any hard-wood trees. Everywhere were hemlocks with short tiny needles, spruces whose needles are longer and grow all around the stem and balsam-firs which have flat, curved needles about the length of the spruce grow-

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ing on the side of the twigs with the inside of the needles of a lighter color. Here and there was a white pine, easily told by its long, fine needles and slim towering trunk. Beyond the evergreen belt came the white birches gleaming like ghosts, sugar-maples, beech and white ash, whose leaves have stems instead of growing directly from the twigs like the stemless leaves of the black ash. Finally on an upper slope Will spied what he wanted, a large shag-bark hickory with its rough, dry bark hanging from the trunk in tattered fringes.

After working for a long time with his flint knife, the boy managed to cut out a good-sized piece of the tough inner bark and started back for camp by another route, intending to strike the brook farther up. As he passed through a grove of hemlocks, beyond which the brook showed like a silver ribbon against the green, he heard far above him a steady grating sound like that made by a dull saw. Looking up he saw in the small wpper branches of a large hemlock near the trunk, a brownish and sooty-black animal

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about three feet long from the tip of its blunt, triangular tail to its black, hairy muzzle. The beast was gnawing bark with great orange-colored teeth, slowly and unceasingly as if under contract to strip the tree. Its head and body were a mass of long, sharp, white quills with dark tips, while its flat tail was studded with shorter ones. The boy recognized the animal as a monstrous "quill-pig"--the name given by trappers to the clumsy, stupid, untouchable porcupine of the northern woods. It was not common around Cornwall and Will had never seen one before the size of the giant which gnawed above him and which must have weighed nearly fifty pounds. At first he tried to frighten the big bark-eater down by throwing sticks, shouting and pounding on the trunk, but the old quill-pig kept right on with his gnawing. At last Will decided to climb up and shake that indifferent porcupine down by main force. Laying aside his little package of hickory bark, he began to gingerly climb up the tree from which the bark had been stripped in large irregular patches. Climbing steadily

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he was about fifteen feet below the animal when he noticed that the gnawing sound had stopped. Looking up he saw that the porcupine had turned around and was looking down at him fixedly with its dull eyes. Suddenly without a sound the animal uncoiled from the tree-trunk and with surprising swiftness began to climb down towards where Will was perched. It did not descend head-first but backed down, sinking its long claws deeply into the trunk at every step. All in a second the beast suddenly doubled in size. It had erected its long quills, and as it came on began to flick its armed tail back and forth threateningly. It suddenly occurred to Will that a tree-top was no place for an argument with a quill-pig. He remembered unpleasantly how he once saw a small porcupine sink a score of barbed poisonous darts into a dog's nose with one swish of its flat tail and he realized too late why the giant porcupine above him was backing down towards his unproteted head and face. Panic stricken he began to clamber down the ladder-like branches of the hemlock. Climb as he would, how-

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ever, he was no match for the porcupine in this exercise and by the time that he was twenty feet from the ground, the big beast was only a couple of yards above him. Will stopped and breaking off a small, dead bough for a club, decided to make a stand. He pounded on the trunk and shouted at the top of his voice hoping to stop the approaching animal. The porcupine only turned its head and regarding the boy menacingly with its dull eyes, kept on down the tree. When the swishing tail was a few feet above his head, Will heard a voice from below.

"Jump quick!" it called. Looking down he saw Joe standing under the tree more excited than he had ever seen him before.

"Hurry!" the Indian shouted again, "no fight porcupig in tree, he kill you. He catch you before you climb down, jump quick!"

Twenty feet was a long jump and Will tried to climb farther down before risking it. Even as he moved the wicked, spiked tail hissed through the air just grazing the top of his head. He felt a sharp pain as three or four of the keen, barbed quills pierced his scalp

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coming loose from their sockets and rankling in his flesh. The next stroke would drive scores of the tiny venomous darts into his head, and face and eyes. Without any more hesitation he sprang out and crashed through the bending green boughs. Joe caught him just before he struck the ground and broke his fall somewhat, but was knocked down, and both boys rolled over and over through the brush. Joe was the first to get up, rubbing his head where he had bumped it on a stump.

"You big fool," he remarked earnestly as he pulled his friend to his feet, "what you try do. Better go into old man bear's den than climb up into old man quill-pig's tree."

Will made no answer but felt himself all over carefully. Although his back looked like a map of South America and his arms and legs were covered with a network of scratches and gashes from the branches and the brush, no bones were broken. After making certain of that he looked up. The porcupine had gone back to his place in the topmost boughs and was gnawing away again as if nothing had happened.

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"You darned old porcupig," yelled Will suddenly, shaking his fist at the undisturbed feeder. "I'll come back and get you yet."

That evening around the camp-fire Joe extracted the quills amid grunts and squeals from Will telling him stories the while of what happened to unwary hunters who climbed up trees after porcupines and how he himself had once found a dead Indian at the foot of a tree with his head and neck horribly swollen where the sharp quills had worked and festered through the flesh. When Will looked closely at the quills he realized what a savage weapon they were. Each one had a conical point which was a mass of little barbs. Moreover they seemed to have the power of infecting or poisoning the flesh into which they were thrust as Will learned from his swollen head the next day. Joe told him that porcupines had been known to kill wolves, lynxes and even panthers with their quills. The fisher, however, is able to feed on the porcupine and even to swallow great quantities of the quills without suffering any harm.

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"Are quill-pigs good to eat?" inquired Will.

"Yes, if man starving," responded Joe. "He need strong stomach any other time to keep meat down."

CHAPTER VI

BEAVER LAND

One morning Joe and Will woke up feeling especially fit. There was a snap and a tingle to the August air which showed that frost was not far away. Just as the rim of the rising sun peered over the edge of Black Hill the boys rolled out from their warm bed of fragrant pine-needles. By this time their sturdy lithe, brown bodies had become well hardened to the cold. Close to the edge of their camp a little waterfall had hollowed out of the granite rock a round basin some fifteen feet across and over six feet in depth. Through the golden-brown water showed the gleam and glimmer of the trout which lived undisturbed in this pool. At one end the falling water made a spray of white foam. This basin the boys used for their bath-tub and every morning took a

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plunge into the tingling icy water of that mountain stream. To-day they dived together off a bank covered with soft green moss and swam through the whirling water like the trout which flashed away in front of them. After a swim back and forth they climbed out on the bank and rubbed down with handfuls of the dry, soft sphagnum moss which they had piled up there to use for bath-towels.

A minute later Joe was blowing live coals under a carefully-built cooking-fire made from twigs of dry horn-beam and beech, while Will cleaned a dozen brook-trout which he caught with his hands from the little storage-pool where they kept the fish which they took on their daily fishing-trip. The meal began with a considerable amount of excitement Will had found a flat, thin piece of shale and had propped this up on two stones over the fire to use as a broiler.

"That stone no good," suggested Joe.

"Aw! go on, Joe," returned Will, "just watch your uncle broil trout on a gridiron instead of toasting them on a stick."

"I 'll watch," was all that Joe answered, but

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he moved some distance away from the fire. Will had just laid one trout on the hot surface and was about to spread out another one when there came a bang like a bomb and the air was full of pieces of stone, trout and ashes. Will went clear over backwards and lay kicking his bare legs frantically in the air. When he finally got up, he found that the trout, the gridiron and mos,t of the fire had disappeared. Only Joe was left doubled up in fits of silent laughter.

"Who fired that gun?" inquired Will in bewilderment, and it took him some time to realize that all the trouble had come from using a piece of soft stone which held enough moisture so that it exploded when heated red-hot.

Will built up the fire again and went back to the old system of cooking. Without a word Joe went down to the brook-bed and came back with a slab of thin, curved, close-grained gneiss which he offered to his friend.

"No, sir," remarked Will, "you can try that to-morrow yourself. I 'll stick to my toasting fork."

It was not long before breakfast was ready.

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With a square of clean white birch-bait for a plate and a pinch of green hickory-ashes for salt the broiled trout did not last long. Then came a quart apiece of sweet blueberries and a big drink of spring-water and the boys were ready for the business of the day. Both boys were in magnificent condition. Joe had worked out of his system the last traces of the rattlesnake venom while Will's scratches and cuts in his tussle with the porcupine had healed up entirely. Today they decided to explore the brook on which they had been depending for their supply of trout.

For a mile or so they walked through country which many fishing-trips had made familiar to them. At last they reached a long narrow gap like a sword-slash among the hills beyond which they had never passed. Through this gorge the brook rushed from out of a tangled growth of spruce and fir. Beyond they caught the gleam of a wide stretch of water. Pushing their way through die thick trees they finally stood on the shore of a pond covering perhaps some twenty-five

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acres. Across the outlet stretched a dam fully one hundred feet in length. At the base it was some fifteen feet wide and about ten feet in height and was built entirely of long branches whose butts faced upstream. These seemed to have been cut off as if by a blunt chisel. Each branch had been anchored by a dab of mud and the whole surface of the dam against the water showed a curved mud facing through which showed the ends of the sticks.

Someone has been building a mill-dam," said Will, examining the structure.

Mogweena," replied Joe briefly.

"Who 's he?"

"Beaver," explained Joe.

"Do you mean to tell me that beaver can build a dam like this?" inquired Will incredulously.

For answer Joe bent down and with some difficulty pulled one of the branches out of the dam and showed it to Will. The end was cut off in a wedge as if by repeated chisel-strokes but along the surface of each cut was a little groove as if a knife or chisel with a

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nick in the blade had been used. This groove marked the space between the four orange-colored, self-sharpening, front teeth of the beaver and shows in every beaver-cutting, the trademark of the beaver-builder. The boys walked across the dam from end to end. The down-stream side was a mass of rough-piled brush, with the base made of old water-worn sticks while along the upper edge new cuttings showed, and here and there were peeled white aspen poles. The thrifty beavers had eaten the bark and added the stripped branches to the structure. The upstream side was carefully plastered with mud which had been patted and moulded as if by a trowel.

"I suppose they do that with their tails," said Will, remembering that a beaver has a long, flat, scaly tail.

Joe laughed.

"Lot of fool stories about beaver," he grunted. "He never use tail for trowel. He slap water with tail when he dive to tell other beaver someone coming and when he cut down trees he slap ground with tail just be-

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fore tree fall to tell other beaver to get out of way."

"Oh, go on, Joe," objected Will, "you 'll be telling me beaver talk next."

"Sure beaver talk," answered Joe, "just like you. Only they talk with tail and you talk with mouth--most of the time too," he went on sarcastically. "Beaver use tail to talk with and to swim with and he carry sticks and mud between tail and belly, but that 's all he uses it for. Another fool-story," went on Joe, waxing eloquent over the slandered beaver, "is that beaver suck air out of logs and make 'em sink. He anchor log at bottom with mud."

"What 's he do that for?" asked Will.

"Eat 'um bark in the winter," said Joe. "Come, you see."

He led Will along the top of the dam on which ran a regular path, the thoroughfare of generations of wild-folk. Diagonally above the dam stretched a long trench or canal some four feet wide and about two feet deep. It ran straight as an arrow back into the woods. The mud and earth had been

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dug out and piled neatly on each side of the trench.

"Some man dug that with a shovel," said Will, examining it carefully.

Joe did not answer, but led the way along the side of the trench through the underbrush to where ended a little grove of quaking aspen-leaves. At the end of the canal a number of the trees, some of which were two feet in diameter, had been cut down by a series of deep chisel-strokes, each one with the tell-tale groove in the center. The trunks had been stripped of limbs and cut up to four-foot lengths and then piled together close by the canal. A deep slide in the mud showed where a number of them had already been pushed down into the trench and afterwards the boys saw in the deep water near the dam a pile of them anchored in the mud. It took Joe some time to convince Will that all this was the work of the beaver.

"They come back and live here now," said Joe. "All summer they travel, visit, play, live in holes in bank and have good time. About time of August moon they all come

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back, work every night, sleep all day, get dam patched up, store up wood for winter and fix up houses."

"How do you come to know so much about them?" inquired Will.

"I used to trap 'em," responded the Indian. "Once I caught big one weighed seventy pounds. Old beaver in trap never make noise, never fight like lynx or wolf. He stand up and cover his head with his hand. You strike at him, he turn off blow with hand and cover head up again. Once I had a little young beaver. I tame him until he follow me like dog and sleep under my blanket and ride on top of my pack when I travel. When I stop he swim around in brook, but come every time I whistle for him."

"What became of him?" inquired Will as Joe came to a dead stop.

"White man shoot him for skin," answered the other briefly. "I shoot white man," he went on, after a pause.

"Do you mean you killed him?"' asked the horrified Will.

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"No," responded the other, "only break his arm. Other white men come and drive me away before I could shoot again."

The boys went back to the dam and examined the beaver-houses of which there were a number. They looked like small Indian teepees. Most of them were built in water several feet deep and were from three to four feet above the surface and about five feet in diameter. One, however, was a huge house built in deep water and fully twice as large as any other. It was made mostly of peeled cotton-wood poles and stood on a firm foundation of mud and sticks built up from the bottom. The poles leaned together from the top and had been woven in and out with thick brush and plastered with mud and turf until the walls were fully three feet thick.

"Old chief live in that house," said Joe, pointing it out to Will. "Every beaver-tribe have chief. He lead them, tell them what to do. Sometimes he take them through woods, ten, twenty, thirty miles and start another colony if fire come or water dry up. He always have biggest house."

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Will was much interested.

"What 's inside and how does he get in?" he inquired.

"Two holes go in under water. Inside is room made out of sticks with floor, and dry bed. Air come down through top of house."

Will stared at the chief's house for some time.

"Say, Joe," he said suddenly, "what 's the matter with us diving down and doing some exploring? The old chap would n't hurt us, would he?"

Joe grinned.

"No," he said at last. "I don't think he move in yet. Even if he there he not fight unless he cornered."

"Let 's try it," urged Will.

"Pretty big dive," objected Joe. "Hole may not be big enough. May get stuck."

"Oh, come on," scoffed Will. "Be a sport. If you get stuck I 'll pull you out."

"Go ahead," grunted Joe.

The boys stood on the dam, took a deep breath, plunged in and swam down through

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the dark water to the base of the house. On the side nearest to the bank was an inclined plane where sticks had been dragged down from the food-pile. At the end of this slanting path was a round hole in the house-wall some two feet in diameter. Nearly opposite was another of the same size. Will reached the hole first and hesitated a moment. He wished then that he could stay under water without breathing for eleven minutes which is the beaver's record. Being a boy, however, his time was limited to only a few seconds more. Suppose the hole narrowed as it came into the house and he got caught. He might drown before he could pull himself out. Then he thought how Joe would guy him if he came up without trying and with a quick stroke he flashed into the entrance almost as fast as a beaver. Fortunately it was wide and smooth throughout its length and in a second he found himself in a room nearly seven feet across. In the middle a floor had been built up from buried sticks, which stood six inches above water-level and was perfectly dry. Near the entrance was a big, dry, warm nest

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made entirely of shredded wood which had been split into splinters. On the side was another bed made mostly of dry grass and moss. For some distance around the entrance and the exit were spaces of deep water. Several feet above the flooring a little light and air filtered in through tiny crevices between the rafters. Will had just time to pull himself up on to the floor when Joe's head emerged puffingly from the tunnel. Unfortunately for the Indian the owner of the house had been taking a snooze over in the moss-lined bed. Just as Joe poked his head out of the water a tremendous black beaver dived for the hole. The two heads, one of the beaver and the other of the boy, met with a bump. It was difficult to tell which was the most startled. Joe grunted like a stuck pig, as Will said afterwards, while the beaver, with a loud spat of its tail, turned around like a flash. With a stroke of his webbed hind-feet and a paddle of his flat, scaly tail, the beaver which was nearly four feet in length, flashed out of sight. Joe

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looked so funny with his eyes bulging out of his head as he clung to the edge of the flooring, that Will nearly rolled into the water from laughing.

"Welcome to our home, Mr. Couteau," he finally managed to say weakly. "Mr. Beaver had to hurry off to keep an engagement but he asked me to take care of you. Will you have a bite of cotton-wood or would you like a bit of beech?"

Joe pulled himself up beside Will and gasped for awhile without a word. Then he rolled comfortably into the warm dry bed of shredded wood which the beaver had just left. It had a faint, sweet, rather pleasant smell of musk.

"Biggest beaver I ever saw," he finally remarked. "He black beaver. Once in awhile beaver born black or white, usually reddish-brown. This old fellow's skin worth lot of money."

"Well," returned Will, "it 's bad enough to borrow his house without taking his skin."

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As their eyes became used to the dim light, the boys moved around the domed chamber, the palace of the King of the Beavers.

"Some water in the cellar," remarked Will, "and the front yard needs draining, but on the whole it 's a snug, warm place. If it gets too cold outside we 'll come down here to live with your friend. Though I must say, Joe," went on Will solemnly, "he did n't seem very glad to see you. You must have hurt his feelings in some way."

Joe made no reply but rubbed the bump on his head. For a long while the boys curled up in the warm bed and talked beaver. Joe told Will many stories of this wise beast which he had heard from the trappers. Once it was found all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson's Bay except in Florida where probably the alligators kept them away. It was their dams which had flooded out great tracts of forest. Later when the water killed the trees and the ruined dams let the water out, the beds of these beaver-lakes became filled up with sediment and became rich meadow-land. In the old days be-

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fore the white men came to this continent millions of beaver-ponds collected rich soil, stored water in time of drought and by checking floods prevented the washing away of many a fertile hillside. Will never forgot that morning in the beaver-hut. In the half-light Joe spoke of the beaver as he would have spoken of a wise, brave, happy tribe of brother Indians. They mate for life and any time they will sacrifice their lives to save their young. He told Will how his people believed that originally there was nothing in the world but shoreless waters in which only giant beaver dwelt. Under the direction of the Great Spirit these beaver dived and brought up mud and boulders out of which they shaped mountains, plains and meadows. Coming down to his own experience he told of seeing them roll into place in their dams hundred pound boulders and of their towing big logs up against the current without an effort. He had watched them cut down trees two feet in diameter as neatly as a man could with an axe. Once Joe found three young heaver feeding on the shore of a brook and

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managed to get between them and the water. When they found they were cut off from escape, they gave a long, shrill, frightened cry like a hurt child. Instantly the old mother-beaver came swimming down the stream and floated on the top seeming to be terribly crippled. When that trick would not work, the old father-beaver also appeared and the two dived and floundered in the water close at hand. At last both of them came out on the bank almost at Joe's feet and dragged themselves around as if fatally wounded. When he tried to catch them, in spite of their apparent clumsiness, the beaver managed to dodge him. In the meantime the young beaver had edged far enough toward the water so as to be able to make a rush and escape. Then both the old ones dived in like lightning with a scornful slap of their tails as they disappeared. Joe told of a fight he had once seen between a beaver and a wild-cat, when in spite of its claws the great cat finally went down before the slashing, crashing bites of the beaver's terrible teeth.

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"No wonder," said Will when the time came to go back to the outer world again, "that Canada has a beaver for its coat-of-arms. It 's a great animal."

CHAPTER VII

THE RED RUSSULA

It was the week after the boys had learned their way to Beaver Land. Nearly every day they would travel up to visit the colony. It was wonderful how much work the heaver would do between dark and dawn. They seemed to know that the frost was on its way. At the first moment of twilight, the old black patriarch of the colony would thrust his head above the water close by his house and then swim slowly and silently around the whole pond, keeping close to the shore, evidently scouting to see if there were any enemies which might threaten his large family. One evening he failed to see the boys crouched close behind a screen of hemlock boughs by the margin of the pond. Finding no sight, scent or sound of danger, this old-timer, whom Will had christened "Granpop,"

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climbed up on a round rock near the center of the pond. This seemed to be the signal that all was well for almost immediately a score or so of other beaver showed in the water and at once separated into different groups. Granpop evidently felt that his age and wisdom entitled him to the easy job of sentry-duty, for during the whole time that the boys were there he did not stir off his rock. Under his watchful eye the others worked with desperate haste. Nearly a dozen marched silently in single file through the woods to a clump of aspens some two hundred yards from the bank. Each heaver chose his tree before beginning the labor of the night. This finished, all of the wood-cutters rose together on their hind legs, embraced their trees with their fore-paws and began to chisel out chips as regularly and swiftly as if they were run by machinery. For nearly an hour they worked. Finally one, who had picked out the smallest tree, an aspen nearly four inches through, suddenly thumped the ground with his tail, dug out a few more chips and scuttled into the under-

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brush. The tree creaked, swayed and then fell with a crash. All the other beaver at the signal had likewise scurried into the underbrush and for nearly five minutes after the crash there was no sign of them. They were evidently waiting to see whether the noise had brought to the place any of their forest-foes. At last one by one they came out and each started in again on his own tree while the first beaver proceeded to cut off the branches and divide his fallen tree into lengths, preparatory to carrying it down to the food-pile.

While this was going on, another detachment could be seen working busily on the other side of the lake, lengthening the canal. The aspen-trees near the canal had been cut off the year before, but another grove showed three hundred yards in from the bank. The beaver had seemingly figured out that it would be easier to lengthen the canal than to drag the logs down through the brush. Accordingly the canal-diggers were hard at work running the ditch as straight as if drawn by a ruler, five feet wide and three feet deep.

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Each worker would dive under the water and come back to the surface carrying a shovelful of earth in his forepaws while another mass of mud was clasped between the digger's flat tail and belly. It was awkward work, but the boys were amazed to see the next morning how far the canal had lengthened during the night and how many trees had been felled and cut up before sunrise. That evening, after an hour or so of watching, the boys stole silently out from behind their tree on their way back to camp. In spite of their caution their very first movement was seen by the watcher on the rock. There were a couple of loud spats on the water and in a moment every worker was safe under water not to return until Granpop was sure that the lurkers under the boughs had gone for good.

The next day the boys started off exploring. In a short two weeks under Joe's coaching Will had become able to take care of himself in the woods. The living in the open, the cold morning plunges and the constant exercise had added to his weight, his strength and above all to his vitality. He had the feeling

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that he could do anything and that he was afraid of nothing, which any of us can have if we are only willing to live in the open instead of the shut. For ordinary trips the boys no longer bothered to take provisions with them for they had learned that there is always food waiting for those who know where to find it. Joe in particular was an expert in breakfast-botany and he showed Will many an emergency-dish which our forefathers knew in their pinching times but which we have forgotten in our days of plenty. One of the first grew by the shores of Beaver Pond, where the water was covered in places with the large green arrow-shaped leaves of the swamp-potato, as it used to be called two hundred years ago. Joe and Will would plunge in and wade around underneath the leaves until they had loosened the roots with their feet when round tubers as large as hens' eggs, would float to the surface. The roots were bitter when raw, but when boiled tasted something like a sweet potato and made a welcome change from the fish-and-berry diet on

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which the boys had lived so long. It was Joe too who gave Will new light on the wild bean or ground-nut which they found growing here and there in open spaces. Will had always known and admired the beautiful brown-purple, fragrant flowers of the vine. Joe wasted no time on the blossoms. Grubbing at the roots of the plant he dug up tubers growing in strings of thirty or forty, some of them as large as hen's eggs. These too the boys boiled and ate and found them much like chestnuts in taste. It was in Beaver Pond too that Will first learned to dive for the roots of the yellow pond-lily or spatter-dock. These grew under water and were one or two feet long. Joe roasted them in hot ashes. They had a slightly sweet, glutinous taste and when cooked were light and porous. The last root that Will learned nearly brought about a break in the family. They had been wandering across the slopes of Black Hill one warm afternoon searching for new things to see and hear and smell and taste. Suddenly Joe stopped in a damp patch of woods and began to pull up the bulbs

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of half-a-dozen big jack-in-the-pulpits or Indian turnips.

"Well," remarked Will, "I 've seen that flower ever since I was a kid but I never knew before that it was any good."

"Bulb make Indian bread," grunted Joe, "best plant in woods."

Before Joe could stop him Will took a big bite from one of the largest.

"Spit out quick, quick!" cried Joe, "no good raw, hurt mouth."

"Don't seem to have much of any taste," said Will, obediently ridding himself of the mouthful.

"You feel taste all right in a minute," responded Joe grimly.

"O! ooh! hi! Ouch! help!" bellowed Will in less than half that time. The juice had an effect on his tongue much like a mixture of powdered glass and sulphuric acid. For awhile he was almost frantic with the pain which water does not stop in the least. Even Joe could think of no cure.

"Get better soon," was all he would say. Yet it was nearly an hour before the aching,

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smarting, tearing pain through Will's tongue and palate was gone. Only the big black bear can eat these bulbs raw.

"You can have my share in that blamed stuff," he said bitterly. "I 'd as soon eat raw hornets and poison-ivy."

That night, however, he changed his mind. Joe boiled the bulbs for over two hours and then roasted them, being careful to eat only the soft outer part for wherever the bulb was at all hard it kept some of its bite. Joe finally persuaded Will to sample a bit of the mealy mass. It tasted like roasted chestnuts and he kept coming back for more until it was all gone.

The next day as they were scouring the woods for food like any other hunting animals, they heard from a thick growth of young spruce a faint cackling note. Joe stopped in his tracks.

"Quiet!" he whispered, pushing Will back from the place, "we have good supper to-night."

Running his sharp quartz knife down the side of a nearby cedar tree he made a twisted

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bark cord some four feet in length. At one end of this he tied a hangman's knot, that long, deadly slip-noose which never jams and which will pull tight at the least pressure. Then he fastened the cord to a pole some eight feet long which he shaped from a moose-wood sapling and started back for the thicket.

"Whatever are you going to fish for with that?" whispered Will following him.

"Suckers!" hissed back Joe sarcastically, disappearing among the spruces.

When Will caught up to him he was standing near a little tree on the lower limbs of which sat six large black-breasted black-and-gray birds each of which showed a line of bright red bare skin above the eye. Will recognized them at once as spruce-partridge which differ from the more common birch-partridge or ruffed grouse in having their feathers shaded with black instead of brown. As the boys came close to them, instead of flying away with a roar of the wings as the ordinary partridge would have done, the birds began to side-step up and down the limb raising their wings and bobbing their heads in a

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kind of dance. Joe slowly stretched out his pole toward the nearest bird. As the noose came close to it the silly grouse actually thrust its gaping head right through the noose. With a quick jerk the Indian snared it and swung the flapping bird back to Will who wrung its neck and loosened the noose. Then Joe caught another and another in the same way, being careful to always fish for the lowest one until he had caught the whole flock.

"That beats any fishing I ever saw," said Will as they hung the dead birds two by two on some high limbs. "I never believed there could be such fool-birds."

That 'um's name," returned Joe and Will afterwards found that both the Indians and the lumbermen alike call spruce-partridge "foo1-birds." As they went on Joe told him that the spruce partridge will fly instantly at the sight of a dog while an ordinary partridge will stay in its tree as long as the dog barks.

Beyond the next rise the boys made another discovery. From the side of