D. Lange

“ To have a drink of sweet tea was more of a treat to Ray than a box of the best candy is to a modern boy or girl, and Ray danced and shouted with joy when he saw what Ganawa was doing. Since Bruce and Ray had been with the Indians they had eaten nothing but meat and fish.
Indians were seldom more provident than white boys are in camp. The Indians around Lake Superior knew of only two kinds of vegetable food which they could gather and keep in quantities: wild rice and blueberries. The supplies of both had been exhausted in Winnego’s camp and the new crop was not yet ripe. ”

“ Even Ganawa, who was no stranger to solitude, confessed that he would be afraid without his white son that could make and sail a white man’s boat, and as the white boys sat and listened to the lapping of the waves, for Lake Superior like the ocean is never entirely quiet, and as they tried in vain to peer through the fog, the words of the Bible ran through their minds: “And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. ”

“ After the evening meal, the two lads built a big camp-fire of green birch logs, mixed with such dry sticks as they could find, so as to make a ruddy blazing fire, which grew so hot that both men and dog had to back away from it. Ganawa smiled as he watched the lads pile on wood and then back off.
“White men do strange things,” he said laughing. “Here, my sons, you have been working hard at cutting wood, and now you have built a big fire, which is so hot that we all have to back away from it. Why did you not build a small fire and sit close to it?” ”

“ Ganawa had scarcely finished his directions when down came three clubs on the pole-and-mud roof of the beaver house, and the boys uttered such piercing yells that Ganawa laughed aloud and said, “My sons, you can yell like Sioux warriors. You almost scared me.”
The beating and the yells certainly scared the beavers. Eight or ten of them, big ones and little ones, dived out of the house and swam for the washes. “There they go! There they go!” cried Ray, and he ran after them on the clear ice. ”

“ After a swim in the clear water of Oba Lake the travellers turned their canoe to the south.
“I am glad we are going home,” remarked Ray. “The black spruce forest looked so big and so much the same everywhere I just could not help feeling that we should get lost if we ever went into it.”
Bruce smiled at Ray’s mention of home. “We are very far from home, my boy,” he answered with a sad smile. “I sometimes think that we shall never see our Vermont hills again. It seems to me that we have been gone for years and that we have just turned around at the end of the world.” ”

“ Even the rare treat of sweet tea with their supper of broiled lake trout failed to revive their spirits. Each drank his share of the tea, but most of the fine broiled fish was left on the birch-bark platter. And after the meal was over, hardly a word was spoken, as each man sat and stared blankly into the fire. And this time, the spirit of the white lads [259] had even drooped deeper than that of the old Indian hunter.
“My sons,” he said when he poured water on the camp-fire, “to-morrow we shall hunt again for Jack Dutton. If he is alive we must find him, and if he is dead we must find him. ”

“ If the mosquitoes caused the boys to spend several miserable nights, the black flies annoyed them much during the day. Whenever they had to make a portage, or when they explored a brush-covered region, these little pests attacked their faces and hands. Many people do not at once feel the bite of a black fly, but the insect leaves a puncture from which the blood will run, and on several days Ray and Bruce looked as if they had been in a big fight. ”

“ One may, however, always hunt with a camera. Animals and birds shot with a camera will keep and be a treasure for a lifetime, and hunting with a camera is a finer and harder sport than hunting with a gun.
As told before, Bruce and Ray did not go hungry, for moose meat or venison, either [48] fresh or dried, is very good food, and there are no better fresh-water fish in the world than the whitefish, lake trout, and brook trout caught in Lake Superior, but Ray often wished for some flour and hominy. ”

“ Death and danger lurk everywhere. One may drown in a storm or in some wild rapids or waterfall almost any day, he may freeze to death, and unless he is a good hunter and fisherman, he might in winter even starve to death; and in summer the terrible pests of mosquitoes and black flies might almost kill a man or drive him crazy. Thank God, there are none of the pests at this camp!” And then Bruce spread his blanket on a bed of lichens and [161] moss that covered the rock, and very soon he was as sound asleep as Ray. ”

“ Bruce had put a mast in the boat and made a sail out of a blanket; and when he showed Ganawa how quickly he could unfurl and reef his sail, the old hunter was convinced.
“My son,” he said, “a good Indian can paddle a canoe on a mad river and a good white man can sail a boat over the mad waves of the sea and the Big Lake. My sons, we shall sail straight to the island over the open lake.” ”

“ Ganawa reminded him, “we are not in a white man’s rowboat. You know the water of Gitche Gumee is very cold for swimming.”
“I forgot, Father, I forgot,” Ray apologized. “I’ll sit still. I know a birch-bark canoe is very cranky, and I don’t wish to swim again in this cold water,” and Ray started in to paddle as if he alone had to take the canoe to the mouth of the Agawa; until Bruce brought him up short, saying:
“Ray, what are you trying to do? Please keep time with us. You will be tired enough by the time we get to camp. It is nearly thirty miles to the mouth of the Agawa.” ”

“ The lads arose, started the fire in the tepee and boiled some fresh beaver meat. The night had been quite cold and some hot broth seemed good for breakfast.
The boys had guessed right that Ganawa had gone scouting for moose tracks, and in a short time he returned to tell the boys that during the night a young moose had crossed the lake near their camp and had travelled east against the wind.
“We must eat,” he said, “and then we must follow the moose. We must wear our warm winter moccasins and we must take our blankets, for no hunter can tell how far he may have to track a moose.” ”

“ Bruce replied after a moment of silence, “white men just like to see a big fire, and most white boys would rather cut [138] and gather much wood and watch a big camp-fire than sit close to a small fire.”
The lads had expected that Ganawa would talk about the man who had almost gone over the falls and whose trail had abruptly ended below the rapids, but after his remarks about the camp-fire of the boys, the tall lean hunter lapsed into silence. He sat motionless looking at the fire or gazing into the black darkness which surrounds every camp-fire at night. ”

“ The night was not cold, as winter nights go, and when, after a hearty breakfast of toasted meat, boiled meat and hot broth, the hunters again took up the trail, each of them felt fit to follow the trail all day.
It was just light enough to see the tracks when they started, and Ganawa cautioned the lads to avoid all noise. “Be very careful not to break any sticks, and you must not talk. It may be,” he explained, “that the moose is leagues ahead of us, but we cannot tell; he may not be far away. ”

“ With eyes and ears keenly alert and with throbbing hearts, the lads peered toward the land for signs of human beings. Unless they found some sign of Jack Dutton on this island, they would have to give up the search. Once Bruce thought he saw a man slip out of the spruce timber, but it was an animal, a deer. No, it was a caribou, Ganawa told them.
And then Ray spied something that made them all stop. “Look there! Look!” Ray cried, and pointed to the top of the hill. “There is a rag tied to a pole. Some man must have been there.” ”

“ Moose meat, venison, grouse, and ducks were all plentiful. With the Indians, there could not be a closed season, because they lived largely on game; but as a general rule, they did not waste any wild meat. If for instance it was too difficult to carry the meat of a moose to camp, the camp was moved to the moose and remained there until the moose was eaten up.
No decent white man or boy, however, should ever kill game in the closed season. The Indian days and the frontier days have passed, and to obey the game laws is as much a duty of a good citizen as to obey other laws. ”

“ The wind went down next day, but Ganawa did not say anything of starting north. A hunter had come to camp with some moose meat and the women had caught plenty of fish in their nets; lake trout, pickerel, and some big brook trout, bigger than Ray had ever seen. These brook trout had come into Lake Superior out of the stream. Such brook trout are found along the shores of Lake Superior to this day. They thrive in the cold, clear water along the shore, and in places where there is little or no fishing they are at times very numerous. ”

“ He walked a few rods along a game trail in search of dry punk wood, but in the dense timber he had a feeling that the sun had set and that at any moment it might grow pitch dark. With a feeling of fear he turned back toward camp. He was puzzled when he came to a fork in the trail, which he had not noticed in coming from the camp. ”

“ The lakes are large, they lie in the rocks in the forest and many little streams run into them, and the beaver people build their dams and houses on these little rivers, and they also build houses on many small lakes, which no hunter has ever found; for this [141] is the country which the Great Spirit has made to be a refuge for the beaver people and the moose. In this country the hunters shall never kill the last beaver and the last moose, because the animals can always find a trail that leads them to a safe place. ”

“ The black flies and the mosquitoes would eat you up and would not let you sleep. There is no trail from the Soo to the Michipicoten, because no Indians ever go that way on land. They always go in canoes on the lake. At night they camp [73] near the lake on shore or on an island where the cool air keeps away the black flies and the mosquitoes, and when the lake is stormy they camp till it is calm again.’ ”
“I did forget about the black flies and mosquitoes,” Ray admitted somewhat humbly, “but I don’t want to leave my dog. I am going to call him Tawny. ”

“ Much to the surprise of Ray, Ganawa even built a fire, which he did by striking the edge of a piece of flint with a small piece of steel and catching the sparks on a piece of dry soft punk. This method of making fire was an improvement on the bow and fire-stick, which the Indians used before they came into contact with white traders. Steel, flint, and tinder are much more portable than the bow, stick, and block of dry wood used during the Stone Age of the human race, and now revived for an interesting and [46] valuable exercise in woodcraft by the Boy Scouts. ”