Читать книгу Marooned in the Forest - A. Hyatt Verrill - Страница 5

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It all happened in the twinkling of an eye. I turned quickly at a sudden cry from Joe—my half-breed guide—in time to see him cast the handle of his broken paddle aside and leap forward for the extra paddle. Before he could reach it the canoe swerved, swung broadside to the rushing current, crashed sickeningly against the jagged rocks, and the next instant I was floundering about in the icy, swirling water. Bumping against rocks, struggling for breath, battling frantically with the torrent, I was swept down the river. Time and again my feet touched bottom, but each time, ere I could gain a foothold, I was drawn under, and each second I realized that my strength was growing less, that my lungs were bursting for air, and that in a few more moments all would be over. Down, down, I sank; above me the green water closed in and from my mouth and nostrils tiny bubbles of escaping air rose upward despite my every effort to withhold the scanty breath within my lungs. I was drowning I knew, and vaguely I wondered what had become of Joe, and how my friends would take the news of my loss here in this river of the great wilderness. Suddenly my foot touched a hard object. I threw all of my last remaining strength into a spasmodic kick and lost consciousness.

Slowly I opened my eyes and with wonder looked upon a strip of deep-blue sky against which the dark-green boughs of evergreens were sharply outlined. For a space I marveled, for so firmly convinced had I been that I was drowned I could scarce realize that I was not looking with spiritual eyes at a scene in another world. Then it dawned upon me that through some miracle I had been saved, and with a mighty effort I sat up.

I found myself upon the very brink of a little precipice—a natural dam over which the river fell in a miniature cataract, although the greater portion of the current swept to the left and poured like a mill-race through a narrow channel in the rocks. In a moment I realized how I had escaped. My final kick had driven me beyond the sweep of the current, I had been washed upon the edge of the waterfall, and my position had allowed the water to drain from my lungs. I was still terribly weak, I was choking with the water I had swallowed, my head swam, and with the utmost difficulty I half crawled, half waded to the shore and threw myself upon the moss-covered bank where rays of sunshine penetrated the foliage overhead.

Although I was saved from death in the river by the merest chance, still my plight was desperate, for I was alone in the heart of the great woods, miles from civilization or settlements and without food, weapons, shelter, or anything save the clothes upon my back and the few trifles my pockets might contain. Possibly, I thought, the canoe might be washed ashore with its contents, or Joe might be safe and in the vicinity; and with these ideas strong in my mind I rose and slowly walked along the river’s bank. I was now rapidly regaining strength, and, with the aid of a stout pole of dead wood which I picked up, I had little trouble in making my way up the stream. Presently I called out Joe’s name, but only the soft echo of the woods replied. Again I trudged on, frequently calling and ever searching the edges of the stream and the eddies for the wreckage of the canoe, but not a sign of my guide or of my outfit could I find. At last, firmly convinced that Joe had been lost and that the canoe and its contents were gone forever, I seated myself upon a log and strove to collect myself and look squarely at the future. It would have been bad enough to be cast away in a country which I knew, but here I was completely at a loss. I had trusted entirely to Joe, and I knew nothing of this wilderness nor of the direction or route to the settlements; while, to make matters still worse, my compass had been lost in the river.

The last was really the least of my troubles, for I had little doubt that I could readily determine which direction was east and which west by the sun, and I had also heard that the moss grew thickest on one side of the trees; but as to whether that side was north or south I could not remember, cudgel my brains as I might. I also knew, in a general way, that the settlements were southward from the camp we had left, and I knew that Joe had expected to reach them by running down with the current, paddling across a lake, and tramping through the woods, and that he had stated the entire trip would consume about five days. However, I could not even I guess how many miles we had traveled before the canoe upset, and I had taken no notice of the turns and twists in the river. For all I knew, the stream might flow east, or even north, at the spot where I had crawled ashore, and if I attempted to travel in any direction—using the flow of the current as my guide—I might easily travel directly away from my fellow-men.

I CALLED OUT JOE’S NAME

My sole hope of reaching civilization would be in following the banks of the river, and this I realized would mean many weary days of tramping alone and unguided through the great forest.

Vainly I regretted having trusted so completely to Joe that I had paid no attention to the surroundings as we swept down the stream, and for that matter had not even asked for information which would have proved so valuable to me now. But it was wasting valuable time to spend the few remaining hours of daylight in regrets, and I was thankful for the few odds and ends of woodcraft and forest lore I had picked up during my life in the woods.

My clothing had partly dried, but with the passing of the bit of sunlight from the opening between the trees the air had become chilly and I was shivering with cold, the strain of my recent experience and my forebodings for the future. Rising from my seat, I strode back and forth, swinging my arms and striving by exercise to regain in some measure the circulation of my blood and a feeling of warmth. Activity, even of this forced sort, did me a world of good, and I began to plan for my immediate wants. Shelter I must have, and warmth, before night fell, and while I was not at the moment hungry, I realized that food of some sort would become a most pressing need by the following morning. Shelter without warmth would be of little value, and I thought with longing of the roaring fires which Joe had built before our camps each night and about which we had lounged while telling tales of past adventures.

Fire I must obtain, and in a mad hope that at least one good match might still remain in my pockets, I sought feverishly and emptied every one of my pockets upon a smooth rock. My total possessions thus displayed consisted of a small bunch of keys, a few small coins, a cambric handkerchief, a heavy jackknife, and the headless sticks of some matches from which the phosphorus had been completely soaked off. I gazed at these few articles with the bitterest disappointment, for of them all the knife was, as far as I could see, the only thing of any value to me in my present plight. With it I thought I might be able to fashion a bow-drill and spindle and thus obtain fire, for in my youth I had accomplished this feat when “playing Indian,” but I well knew the difficulty in obtaining just the proper kinds of wood and I realized that a search for them would consume much valuable time, whereas but an hour or two of daylight now remained. Then flint and steel occurred to me. I had the steel in my knife, but I did not know whether flint was to be obtained in the vicinity. However, I rose, made my way to the stony edge of the river, and sought diligently for some bit of rock which resembled flint. Each piece that struck my fancy I tried with my knife, and several gave off faint, bright sparks. All these I pocketed and, having obtained quite an assortment, I retraced my way to the rock whereon I had left my other possessions and prepared to try my hand at obtaining fire by means of my knife and the pebbles.

I realized that the tiny sparks which I could obtain in this way would never ignite a twig, or even a bit of bark, and that some inflammable tinder, which would catch the spark and which could then be fanned to a flame, must be secured before I could hope to succeed. As I was thinking of this my gaze fell upon a black-edged hole in my handkerchief. It had been burned, a couple of days before, by a spark from Joe’s pipe blown back by the wind. The incident was too trivial to have filled my thoughts for an instant at another time, but now all its details came back to me with a rush and I gave a shout of joy as I suddenly realized that this burnt hole and the events which had caused it had actually solved my puzzle. Seizing the square of cotton cloth, which was now quite dry, I weighted it down with bits of stone—for the apparently useless handkerchief had now become of the utmost value to me—and hurried into the woods in search of dry twigs and other inflammable material. I had not long to hunt, for dead and dried trees were all about; several white birches furnished sheets of paper-like bark, and with a great armful of fire-wood I returned to my rock. Gathering the handkerchief into a loosely crumpled mass, I placed it on the rock, held the most promising of my pebbles close to it, and struck the stone sharply with the back of my knife-blade. A little shower of sparks flew forth at the blow, but none fell upon the handkerchief. Again and again I tried, each time holding the stone in a different position and trying my best to cause the sparks to fall upon the handkerchief. Finally I gathered the cloth in my hand, held the pebble in the midst of its folds, and struck it.

Sparks gleamed against the handkerchief, but no sign of charring cloth or wisp of smoke rewarded me. Surely, I thought, these sparks must be as hot as the tiny, glowing ember from Joe’s pipe, and I unfolded and examined the handkerchief about the burned spot. Perhaps, I thought, this particular part of the cloth was more inflammable than the rest, and again gathering up the handkerchief, with the old burn close to the pebble, I again struck it with my knife.

Carefully I examined the cloth and the next instant dropped knife and pebble and cried aloud in triumph, for at one edge of the charred hole a tiny speck of red glowed in the dusk of coming evening, and spread rapidly in size. Carefully I blew upon it, folded another corner of the cloth against it, and waved it back and forth. Brighter and brighter it gleamed; a tiny thread of pungent smoke arose from it and an instant later a little tongue of flame sprang from the cambric, and I knew that fire, warmth, and comfort were mine. It was but an instant’s work to ignite a piece of birch bark and push it among the pile of wood and twigs, and then, carefully extinguishing the handkerchief—for it had now grown very precious in my eyes—I squatted before the blazing fire and reveled in the comforting warmth from its glow. Although it was too late to consider ways and means of shelter that night, I knew that I could keep warm, and as soon as the chill and stiffness had been driven from my bones and muscles I set diligently at work gathering great piles of fuel to feed the flames during the night. Several large logs were close by, and these, with much labor, I dragged to the fire and placed near at hand to use later on when I went to sleep. By the time I had accumulated a supply which I judged would last through the night, I discovered that I was very hungry. I had not eaten since the forenoon, and I had worked strenuously, to say nothing of the utter exhaustion occasioned by my semi-drowning. My efforts to obtain fire and the extent to which I had concentrated my mind on this problem had kept me up and doing until now, but, once the fire was blazing merrily and an ample supply of fuel was at hand, I felt weary beyond words, famished, and absolutely worn out.

“I EMPTIED THE CONTENTS OF MY POCKETS ON A ROCK”

“I STRUCK THE STONE WITH MY KNIFE-BLADE”

The sun had set and the forest was black as midnight, but the sky was still faintly bright with the afterglow and the river shone silvery as it swirled and eddied between its shadowy banks. There was no hope of finding berries, roots, or other edibles in the woods after dusk. I had no means of catching game or fish, which, I knew, were abundant, and I commenced to think that I would die a miserable death of starvation before morning, when I suddenly recollected having seen a number of fresh-water mussels in some shallow backwaters of the river while hunting for my flinty pebbles. I had never eaten these shell-fish, but I felt sure they were edible, and, seizing a blazing pine knot from the fire, I made my way to the shore and soon found the pools where I had noticed the mollusks. There were not many—a bare dozen were all I could find that night—but these I felt would be far better than nothing, and in a few moments I had them baking on a bed of hot coals. Hardly waiting for them to cook, I raked them forth and devoured them ravenously, and never did choicest food taste so delicate, so delicious, and so welcome to my lips as did those half-baked, slimy, unseasoned mussels eaten beside my fire in the midst of the wilderness. Few as they were, they served to refresh me greatly and to drive away the most pressing pangs of hunger, and, much as I desired more, I had not the strength or ambition to trudge up and down the river-bank searching for the shells. Piling several huge logs on the fire, I formed a rude bed of fir twigs and, casting myself upon this, fell instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.