Daniel P. Thompson

“ The river, to be sure, is quite low, and the current, of course, at its feeblest point; but we shall find places enough within the next mile where the canoe, to go up at all, must go up like the jump of a catamount. So, down in the bottom of the boat, on your braced knees, with your haunches on your heels, and leave all to me.”
“What! do you expect to force the canoe up rapids like these?” asked Claud, in surprise, as he cast his eye over the long reach of eddying, tumbling waters, that looked like a lessening sheet of foam as it lay stretched upward in the distant perspective. ”

“ On, after reaching and pushing off their now well-freighted canoe, on,—along the extended coast-line of this wild lake, westward to the great inlet, up the gently inflowing waters of that broad, cypress-lined stream, to the Maguntic, and then, tacking eastward, around the borders of that still wilder and more secluded lake,—on, on, they sped for hours, until the ringing of the axe-fall, and the lively echo of human voices in the woods, apprised them of their near approach to the spot which their companions had selected, both for their night’s rest and permanent head-quarters for the season. ”

“ We have something that more nearly concerns us to attend to, in this strait, than forming conjectures about the loss of our property: our lives are at stake! If you will mind me, however, you may all yet be saved.”
“Direct us, direct us, and we will obey,” eagerly responded one and all.
“Two of you follow me, then, for something dry, if we can find it, for a fire, and the rest go to kicking away and treading down the snow under the rock, with all your might!” sharply commanded the hunter, dashing his way towards the thickets, with hatchet in hand. ”

“ Fluella looked at Claud as if he was the one to answer the question, and he accordingly remarked:
“I have ever heard, chief, that your people always notice a benefit done to them, and that he who does them one secures their lasting gratitude.”
“The young man,” rejoined the chief, considerately, “has heard words that make, sometime, too much; they make true, the good-doer doing no wrong to us after. But when he takes advantage of our gratitude he wipes out the debt; he does more,—he stands to be punished like one an enemy always.” ”

“ To be in the same wilderness with him were a pleasure, to the insupportable suspense I must suffer here. If I discover all to be well, I need not show myself; but, if it be as I fear, O, what happiness to be near him! Yes, it is decided; I will start in the morning.”
And, hastily descending from her stand, with the firm, quick step and decisive air of one whose purpose is fixed, she struck off directly for the house; where, after a few hasty preparations, she retired to her bed, and, happily, after the exhausting cares of the day, was soon quieted into sound and refreshing slumber. ”

“ Among the crowd who had arranged themselves in rows, to witness the departure of the court officials and the prisoner, were the two now inseparable friends, Mrs. Elwood and Fluella; who, on turning from the spectacle, had strolled, arm-in-arm, to a green, shaded grass-plot at the farther end of the tavern building, and were now, with pensive but interested looks, bending over the garden fence, and inspecting a small parterre of budding flowers, which female taste had, even in a place so lately redeemed from the forest as this, found means to introduce. ”

“ The news of Gaut’s return alone, his improbable story, and the discovery of its almost certain falsity, spread like wild-fire over the settlement; and the people, already prepared to believe the worst by their previous suspicions of Gaut’s evil designs, rose up as one man, instinctively shuddering at the thought of the apprehended crime, and feeling irresistibly impelled to attempt something to bring about that fearful atonement which Heaven demands of every man who wilfully sheds the blood of his fellow-man. ”

“ Coasting in closely to the shore, so as to keep within the shadow of the woods, they pursued their noiseless way up the lake, to a point where the low, marshy land lying between the lower part of the Umbagog and the Magalloway rises into the gradually-swelling ridge, which, a mile or two farther on, becomes a rocky, precipitous mountain, whose beetling cliffs, overhanging the deep, dark waters beneath, were crowned with their primeval growth of towering pines. ”

“ Elwood, read few other books than those we see opened to us on the face of nature, or hear or read few other sermons than those in the outspread pages of the bright lake, the green woods, and the grand mountain.”
“You Indians!” said Elwood, looking at the other with a playful yet half-chiding expression. “Why, Fluella, should a stranger look at your fair skin, hear you conversing so well in our language, and quoting so appropriately from our books, he would hardly believe you an Indian, I think, unless you told him.” ”

“ Singling out the nearest goose of the nearest column, Claud quickly caught his aim, and fired; when the struck bird, with a convulsive start, suddenly clasped its wings, and, in its onward impulse, came down like lightning into the bushes, within five rods from its exulting captor.
“Done like a marksman,—plumped through and through under the wing. You are improving, young man,” exclaimed the hunter, who now, rapidly coming down, had reached the foot of the tree, as Claud came forward from the bushes, with his prize. “It is a fine fat one, ain’t it?” ”

“ In compliance with this suggestion, those not already in the boats took to their seats, handled their oars, pushed off, and, headed by the hunter and his boat companion, and falling, one after another, into a line, rowed steadily on across the broadest part of the lake, taking a lofty pine, whose attenuated top looked like a reed rising over the fog in the distance, as a guide and landmark to the great inlet, where the most arduous task of their expedition was to be encountered,—the surmounting of the long line of rapids leading to the great lakes above. ”

“ A lively shout of laughter burst from the lips of the company at the disclosure, showing alike their amusement at the practical way in which the hunter had turned the jokes of the teasing trapper, and their agreeable surprise at his luck in the uncertain hunting cruise along the shores, on which they, without any expectation of his success, had banteringly dispatched him. “Ah, I think you may as well give up beat, all round, Mr. Codman,” observed Mark Elwood, after the surprise and laughter had subsided. ”

“ He felt his strength giving way, his brain beginning to whirl, and he was on the point of yielding himself to his fate; when a stream of smoke and flame accompanied the startling report of a rifle, shot out from the edge of a neighboring thicket. The moose gave a convulsive start, floundered forward on his knees, swayed backward and forward an instant, then fell over broad-side into the bushes with a heavy crash, straightened out, gasped, and died. ”

“ In the surrounding field were patches of growing maize, wheat, potatoes, and some of the common table vegetables; the hay crop for the winter sustenance of the only cow and yoke of oxen, the best friends of the new settler, having been just cut and stored in an adjoining log-building, as was evident from the fresh look of the stubble, and the stray straws hanging to the slivered stumps on bushes in the field, and from the fragrant and far-scenting locks protruding from the upper and lower windows of the well-crammed receptacle passing under the name of barn. ”

“ The sudden and terrible outbreak of indignation, which, with equal surprise and gratification, she had seen him exhibit against Gaut, and the quarrel in court, which followed in consequence, must, she thought, now forever keep them separate. If so, poorly as her family could afford to suffer their part of the loss of the avails of the fall’s work, she would cheerfully bear it, and even look upon the event in the light of a Heaven-sent mercy. ”

“ So, at least, Claud then found it; for, having passed to the most outward point of rocks inclosing the eddy, he no sooner threw in and drew his skip bait round the borders of the foam-island just named, than a dozen large trout shot up from beneath, and leaped splashing along the surface, in keen rivalry for the prize of the bait. With a second throw, he securely hooked one of a size which required all his strength to draw it, as he at length did, flapping and floundering to a safe landing. ”

“ From the water’s edge rose, deeply enshrouded in their bright green, flowing, and furbelowed robes of thickly interwoven pines, the undulating hills, back to the summit level of that long, narrow tongue of forest land, which, for many miles, only separates the Umbagog from the parallel Magalloway, the noble stream that here comes rushing down from the British highlands, to join the scarcely larger Androscoggin, almost at the very outset of its “varied journey to the deep.” ”

“ By the goodness of my white father, whom I am proud [Pg 253] to hope you may some time see with me in your settlement, I have all the comforts and indulgences that a heart at ease could desire; warm, carpeted rooms, dress, books, company, smooth flatterers, who mean little, it may be, together with real friends, who mean much, and prove it by actions, which do not, like words, ever deceive. And yet, Mrs. Elwood, they are all now without any charms for me. My heart is in your settlement. The grand old forest, and the bright lake, were always things of beauty for me, before I saw him ”

“ And with such headlong speed did the frightened brutes advance upon him, that he had scarce time to draw his clubbed rifle before the old one had broke into the little open space where he stood, and thrown herself on her haunches, in an attitude of angry defiance. Recoiling a step in the only way he could move, and expecting the next moment to find himself within the fatal grasp of the bear, if he did not disable her, Claud aimed and struck with all his might a blow at her head. ”

“ She carried no colors by which her character could be determined; but the very absence of all such insignia, together with the sinister appearance of her long, low sides, which exhibited the aspect of masked port-holes, and also the peculiar stir of her evidently large and strange-looking crew, at once marked her as an object of suspicion.
“Elwood, your fears were prophetic,” said the captain, lowering his glass from a long, intent observation. “That craft is a pirate, with scarce a shadow of doubt. But don’t the mad creature see the frigate, and the frigate her?” ”

“ The expected storm had set in, with that low, deep commotion of the elements, and that slowly gathering impetus, which, as may often be noted at the commencement of great storms, was but the too certain prelude of its increase and duration. The fine snow was sifting down apace to the already whitened ground, and the rising wind, even in their mountain-hemmed nook, was whirling in fierce and fitful eddies about their camp, and shrilly piping among the strained branches of the vexed forest around ”

“ On that morning, at the Elwood Landing, on the western shore of Umbagog, stood a collected group of excited people, of different ages and sexes, gazing anxiously across the lake in the direction of the great inlet, as if expecting the appearance of some object or person from that quarter. ”

“ The smaller stones and broken fragments, as soon as loosened or beat off by the bars and sledges, were seized and hurled in showers over the surrounding ledges; the larger ones, when started from their beds by the long heavy prys, were grappled with the united strength of all that could get to them, rolled up, pitched over the precipice in front, and sent bounding and crashing down the gorge below. And the whole forest resounded with the din of their heavy blows and the mingling sounds of their varied labors. ”

“ The next moment the expected flock, spread out in columns answering to the two sides of a triangle, each a quarter of a mile in extent, and the nearest nearly in a line with the summit where the young huntsman stood, with raised rifle, awaiting their approach, came in full view, making the forest resound with their multitudinous and mingling cries, and the loud beating of their long wings on the air, as they swept onward in their close proximity to the earth. ”

“ A rustling sound, seeming to come from some one squeezing through the entrance, was now heard; and soon a dark object, resembling the head and shoulders of a man, making slow and cautious advances, was fully protruded into the cavern; when, suddenly, the whole ledge shook with the stunning report of a rifle, and the next moment, Turner, Phillips, and their chosen backers, had all disappeared in the cloud of smoke that came pouring up through the chasm. ”

“ Like the gliding of a fish, shrinking away from sight, the light canoe, under the invisible impulse of the dexterously handled oar of the trapper, passed noiselessly away, and disappeared in the darkness. But, long before the expectant officer, who had been vainly listening for some sound, either of the [Pg 281] going or the coming of the absent canoe, had thought of its return, it was again at his side, with the anticipated addition to its occupants.
“Here is the man, to speak for himself,” said the trapper, putting out a hand to guard off and prevent the canoes from grazing. ”

“ Do you see that perpendicular, broken line of light, occasionally flashing out from the smoke, and extending upward to a height that no ground fire ever reached? That is your king pine in a blaze from bottom to top. Hark! why, I can hear it roaring clear here, like a distant hurricane. It must be a prodigious hot fire to make all that show and noise.”
“Can it endanger our buildings?” asked Claud, in alarm. ”