Читать книгу The Untamed American Spirit: Historical Novels & Western Adventures - Emerson Hough - Страница 86

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The supply of mountain mutton had lessened with alarming rapidity in this open-air work, which tends to give any man or boy a strong appetite. Moise looked rather ruefully at the few pieces which he still had hanging on his meat line near the camp.

“I’ll tol’ you this sheep she’s getting mighty scarce now pretty soon before long,” said he.

“Why not make a hunt, Alex?” asked Rob. “It looks like fairly good country, and you might be able to get something.”

“We might get a bear,” said Alex, “or possibly a moose. For all I know, the buffalo used to come this far back in from the east. It doesn’t look like sheep country just in here, however, because we have to go too far to get to the mountains.”

“How about caribou?”

Alex shook his head. “You mustn’t ask me,” said he. “This isn’t my country, and I’ve never been here before, nor seen any man who has been here. I know there are caribou in British Columbia, far to the north.”

“Mackenzie talks about seeing reindeer in here.”

“Yes, I suppose he meant the black-faced caribou of the mountains, and not the regular barren-ground animal which goes in the big herds. It’s odd, but those early men didn’t seem to know all the animals on which they depended so much. Without doubt Mackenzie called the musk-ox some sort of buffalo, and he called these mountain caribou the reindeer. But we might get one for all of that. How would you like to go with me across the river, Mr. Rob, and make a little hunt?”

“Fine!” assented Rob, eagerly. “But how about the others?”

“I’ll tell you, Rob,” said John, who, to tell the truth, was just a little tired from the hard work of the day before; “you and Alex go across, and after a while Moise will take Jess and me out on this side a little way back. We’ll all meet here this evening.”

This plan was agreed to, and in the course of a few moments Alex and Rob were pushing across the river in the Mary Ann, equipped lightly for their first hunt after some game which Rob was eager to meet because it was new to him.

Once more they pushed through heavy undergrowth close to the river, traveled up a rather lofty bank, and found themselves in flatter country, beyond which at some distance rose some mountains.

“I’ll bet you,” said Rob, “that this is just about where Mackenzie climbed the tree to look around — you can’t see much from the river down there, and his men were complaining about the hard work, and he didn’t know where he was. So he climbed a tree to have a look.”

“Well, Mr. Rob,” said Alex, “if you don’t mind, I’ll let you do the climbing, while I sit here and smoke. I’m not quite as light as I once was.”

“All right,” said Rob. And, divesting himself of his cartridge-belt and jacket, a little later he began to make his way up to the topmost branches of the tall spruce, breaking off the dead limbs as he slowly advanced upward.

Rob remained aloft for some moments, but at last descended and rejoined Alex.

“Now, what did you see, Mr. Rob?” inquired the old hunter.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Rob; “it’s hard to figure out exactly, of course. But Mackenzie talks about high mountains off to the northwest, and a parallel range of mountains running to the south, with a narrow valley between. That, of course, must be this river, and as near as I can tell, it must have been about here that he and Mackay and the Indian hunters took to the shore to spy out the way.”

“And jolly well got lost, too, eh?”

“They certainly did — got lost from their boat for an entire day! I can imagine how they felt when they didn’t know whether the boat was above them or below them. Mackenzie says the mosquitoes about ate them up. They sent branches down the river to let the boatmen know they were above them. It wasn’t until night that finally they found the boat was far below them. I’ll warrant they were glad when they got together again. The truth is, the men were almost ready to turn back and leave Mackenzie where he was.”

“They’d have done that a dozen times but for his courage,” said Alex. “Well, now, what would you do, Mr. Rob, if you should get lost in the woods or mountains any time?”

“I’d try to keep cool,” said Rob, “but I’m not sure that I could. It’s a mighty bad feeling — I know what it is myself. What would you do, Alex, if you ever got lost in a storm, or anything of that kind?”

“Sit down and build a fire,” answered Alex. “Go to sleep, take it easy, and wait till my mind got cool. Then when you’re rested and all ready to go on, you nearly always know which is the right direction. You see, an Injun is a good deal like a dog, as Moise would say. But now suppose I should get separated from you in here — how would you get back to camp?”

“Well, you see,” said Rob, “there is that high mountain on this side of the river, and there is one right opposite, far off on the east side. I know our camp is on the line between those two peaks. Of course I’d know the river was downhill, unless I wandered off over some other little divide. I’d just simply go downhill as straight as I could until I hit the river. Of course I couldn’t tell, maybe, whether I was just above or below the camp. But I’d wait to see smoke, and I’d fire off my rifle, hoping that some one would hear me. Then I think I would not go very far from that place. I’d sit down and build a smoke, and wait.”

“That would be the best way to do,” Alex assented. “But do you know, simple as that seems, lots of grown men couldn’t do it — they’d lose their heads and be just as apt to go west as east! Many a man has been lost in the wilderness simply because he got excited and scared and didn’t take it easy. Always remember that whenever you are in a wild country it isn’t as dangerous as it seems to be.

“But come, now,” he resumed, “I suppose we must get over in that flat country and see if we can find any sign of game.”

“How do you hunt caribou, Alex? I don’t know anything about it.”

“That’s hard to answer,” rejoined the old hunter. “Of course you can take a trail if you can find it, and if it seems fresh. An Injun hunts moose by following the trail. But either a moose or a caribou has very keen scent, and if you follow straight on after them, and don’t circle once in a while and pick up the trail again, you’re not apt to come up with either one or the other. A caribou, however, is a strange animal — it isn’t nearly as wild as a moose or a bighorn. A grizzly bear has very keen scent but very bad eyes, and I don’t suppose a grizzly can see you half a mile at best. Now, a caribou has good eyes, ears, and nose, but he hasn’t got any head. Sometimes he is very shy, and sometimes he’ll stand and look at you, and let you keep on shooting. He seems to be full of curiosity, and wants to know what you’re doing.

“We’ll work on over a little at a time,” he continued, “and maybe if we skirt around some open meadows or glades we may see some tracks. Sometimes they come out in places like that to feed or stand around. A water-hole or little lake, too, is good for game usually. When an Injun knows he’s in a country where game is moving or feeding he keeps pretty quiet and lets the game come to him rather than going to it.”

The theories laid down by the old hunter seemed soon to work out fairly well, because they had not gone up more than a mile farther until they got into a country which showed considerable sign of moose and caribou, the latter in rather a fresh trail. As this led them to a sort of open, grassy glade, where other sign was abundant, Alex paused for a time in the hope that something might show from the heavy cover in which they had been traveling.

At last he quietly laid a hand on Rob’s arm, and without making any sudden movement, pointed across the glade, which at that place was several hundred yards wide.

“Oh, I see them!” said Rob, in an excited whisper. “What funny-looking things they are — five of them!”

“Two stags, three cows,” said Alex, quietly. “Too far to shoot. Wait awhile.”

They drew back now into the cover of the surrounding valleys, where it is true the mosquitoes annoyed them unspeakably, but where they remained with such patience as they could possess. The caribou seemed to be slowly feeding out from the opposite edge of the forest, but they were very deliberate and uncertain in their progress. The two watched them for the best part of half an hour.

“Too bad!” said Alex, at last, as he peered out from behind the tree which shielded them. “Four hundred yards at best.”

Rob also ventured a look at this time.

“Why, there’s only three,” said he.

“Yes, the two stags went back into the woods.”

“But we can’t kill the cows,” said Rob, decisively.

“Why not? They’re just as good to eat.”

“Maybe better,” said Rob, “I don’t doubt that. A young, fat cow is better meat than an old bull any time, of course. But Uncle Dick said we mustn’t waste anything, and mustn’t kill anything except what had horns in this kind of game.”

“Well,” said Alex, “I don’t much feel like going back to camp without any meat.”

“Nor I. Let’s wait here awhile and maybe the stag’ll come out again.”

This indeed proved to be the case, for in a few minutes the smaller stag did show at the edge of the wood, offering a dim and very uncertain mark at a distance of several hundred yards. Rob began to prepare his rifle.

“It’s too far,” said Alex. “No Injun would think of shooting that far. You might only cripple.”

“Yes,” said Rob, “and I might only miss. But I’d rather do that than shoot at one of the cows. I believe I’ll take a chance anyhow, Alex.”

Adjusting his rifle-sights to the best of his knowledge, Rob took long and careful aim, and fired at the shoulder of the distant caribou, which showed but indistinctly along his rifle-sights. The shot may have come somewhere close to the animal, but certainly did not strike it, for with a sudden whirl it was off, and in the next instant was hidden by the protecting woods.

Now, there was instanced the truth of what Alex had said about the fickleness of caribou nature. The three cows, one old and two young ones, stood in full view in the open, at about half the distance of the stag. They plainly saw both Alex and Rob as they now stepped out from their cover. Yet instead of wheeling and running, the older cow, her ears standing out high and wide, began to trot steadily toward them instead of running away. Rob once more raised his rifle, but this time not to shoot at game, but only to make an experiment. He fired once, twice, and three times in the air; and even up to the time of the last shot, the old cow trotted steadily toward him, not stopping until she was within fifty yards of him. Here she stood staring wide-eyed, but at length, having figured out something in her own mind, she suddenly wheeled and lumbered off again, her heavy, coarse muzzle straight ahead of her. All three now shambled off and soon were lost to view.

“Well, what do you think about that, Alex?” demanded Rob. “That’s the funniest thing I ever saw in all my hunting. Those things must be crazy.”

“I suppose they think we are,” replied Alex, glumly; “maybe we are, or we’d have taken a shot at her. I can almost taste that tenderloin!”

“I’m sorry about it, Alex,” said Rob, “but maybe some of the others will get some meat. I really don’t like to shoot females, because game isn’t as plentiful now as it used to be, you know, even in the wild country.”

Alex sighed, and rather unhappily turned and led the way back toward the river. “It’s too late to hunt anything more,” said he, “and we might not find anything that just suited us.”

When at length they reached camp, after again crossing the river in the Mary Ann, twilight was beginning to fall. Rob did not notice any difference in the camp, although the keen eyes of Alex detected a grayish object hanging on the cut limb of the tree at the edge of the near-by thicket. John and Jesse pretended not to know anything, and Alex and Rob, to be equally dignified, volunteered no information and asked no questions.

All the boys had noticed that old hunters, especially Indian hunters, never ask one another what success they have had, and never tell anything about what they have killed. Jesse, however, could not stand this sort of thing very long, and at length, with considerable exultation, asked Rob what luck he had had. Rob rather shamefacedly admitted the failure which he and Alex had made.

“We did better,” said Jesse; “we got one.”

“You got one? Who got it?” demanded Rob. “Where is it?”

“There’s a ham hanging up over there in the brush,” answered Jesse. “We all went out, but I killed him.”

“Is that so, John?” asked Rob.

“It certainly is,” said John. “Yes, Jesse is the big chief to-night.”

“We only went a little way, too,” said Jesse, “just up over the ridge there, I don’t suppose more than half a mile. It must have been about noon when we started, and Moise didn’t think we were going to see anything, and neither did we. So we sat down, and in an hour or so I was shooting at a mark to see how my rifle would do. All at once we saw this fellow — it wasn’t a very big one, with little bits of horns — come out and stand around looking to see what the noise was about. So I just took a rest over a log, and I plugged him!”

Jesse stood up straight, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, a very proud young boy indeed.

Moise, strolling around, was grinning happily when at last he met the unsuccessful hunters.

“Those Jesse boy, she’ll been good shot,” said he. “I s’pose, Alex, you’ll not make much hunter out of yourself, hein?”

“Well,” said Alex, “we let some mighty good cow venison get away from us, all right.”

“Never mind,” said Moise, consolingly, “we’ll got fat young caribou now plenty for two — three days, maybe so.”

Rob went up to Jesse and shook him by the hand. “Good boy, Jess!” said he. “I’m glad you got him instead of myself. But why didn’t you tell us when we came into camp?”

“Moise said good hunters didn’t do that,” ventured John, who joined the conversation. “How about that, Alex?”

“Well,” said the older hunter, “you must remember that white men are different from Injuns. People who live as Injuns do get to be rather quiet. Now, suppose an Injun hunter has gone out after a moose, and has been gone maybe two or three days. He’ll probably not hunt until everything is gone in the lodge, and maybe neither he nor his family is going to eat much until he gets a moose. Well, by and by he comes home some evening, and throws aside the skin door of the lodge, and goes in and sits down. His wife helps him off with his moccasins and hands him a dry pair, and makes up the fire. He sits and smokes. No one asks him whether he has killed or not, and he doesn’t say whether he has killed, although they all may be very hungry. Now, his wife doesn’t know whether to get ready to cook or not, but she doesn’t ask her man. He sits there awhile; but, of course, he likes his family and doesn’t want them to be hungry. So after a while, very dignified, he’ll make some excuse so that his wife can tell what the result of the hunt has been. Maybe he’ll say carelessly that he has a little blood on his shirt, which ought to be washed off, or maybe he’ll say that if any one were walking a couple of miles down the river they might see a blazed trail out toward the hills. Then his wife will smile and hurry to put on the kettles. If it isn’t too far, she’ll take her pack-strap then and start out to bring in some of the meat. Every people, you see, will have different ways.”

“But the man who doesn’t kill something goes hungry, and his family, too?”

“Not in the least!” rejoined Alex, with some spirit. “There, too, the ‘First People’ are kinder than the whites who govern them now. Suppose in my village there are twenty lodges. Out of the twenty there will be maybe four or five good hunters, men who can go out and kill moose or bear. It gets to be so that they do most of the hunting, and if one of them brings in any meat all the village will have meat. Of course the good hunters don’t do any other kind of work very much.”

“That isn’t the way white people do,” asserted John; “they don’t divide up in business matters unless they have to.”

“Maybe not,” said Alex, “but it has always been different with my people in the north. If men did not divide meat with one another many people would starve. As it is, many starve in the far-off countries each winter. Sometimes we cannot get even rabbits. It may be far to the trading-post. The moose or the caribou may be many miles away, where no one can find them. A heavy storm may come, so no one can travel. Then if a man is fortunate and has meat he would be cruel if he did not divide. He knows that all the others would do as much with him. It is our custom.”