The Young Trailers
J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Young TrailersThey built at each corner of the palisade the largest and strongest of
their houses,--two-story structures of heavy logs, and Henry noticed
that the second story projected over the first. Moreover, they made
holes in the edge of the floor overhead so that one could look down
through them upon anybody who stood by the outer wall. Ross went up into
the second story of each of the four buildings, thrust the muzzle of his
rifle into every one of the holes in turn, and then looked satisfied.
"It is well done," he said. "Nobody can shelter himself against the wall
from the fire of defenders up here."
These very strong buildings they called their blockhouses, and after
they finished them they dug a well in the corner of the inclosed ground,
striking water at a depth of twenty feet. Then their main labors were
finished, and each family now began to furnish its house as it would or
could.
It was not all work for Henry while this was going on, and some of the
labor itself was just as good as play. He was allowed to go considerable
distances with Ross, and these journeys were full of novelty. He was a
boy who came to places which no white boy had ever seen before. It was
hard for him to realize that it was all so new. Behold a splendid grove
of oaks! he was its discoverer. Here the little river dropped over a
cliff of ten feet; his eyes were the first to see the waterfall. From
this high hill the view was wonderful; he was the first to enjoy it.
Forest, open and canebrake alike were swarming with game, and he saw
buffaloes, deer, wild turkeys, and multitudes of rabbits and squirrels.
Unaccustomed yet to man, they allowed the explorers to come near.
Ross and Henry were accompanied on many of these journeys by Shif'less
Sol Hyde. Sol was a young man without kith or kin in the settlement, and
so, having nobody but himself to take care of, he chose to roam the
country a great portion of the time. He was fast acquiring a skill in
forest life and knowledge of its ways second only to that of Ross, the
guide. Some of the men called Sol lazy, but he defended himself. "The
good God made different kinds of people and they live different kinds of
lives," said he. "Mine suits me and harms nobody." Ross said he was
right, and Sol became a hunter and scout for the settlement.
There was no lack of food. They yet had a good supply of the provisions
brought with them from the other side of the mountains, but they saved
them for a possible time of scarcity. Why should they use this store
when they could kill all the game they needed within a mile of their own
house smoke? Now Henry tasted the delights of buffalo tongue and beaver
tail, venison, wild turkey, fried squirrel, wild goose, wild duck and a
dozen kinds of fish. Never did a boy have more kinds of meat, morning,
noon, and night. The forest was full of game, the fish were just
standing up in the river and crying to be caught, and the air was
sometimes dark with wild fowl. Henry enjoyed it. He was always hungry.
Working and walking so much, and living in the open air every minute of
his life, except when he was eating or sleeping, his young and growing
frame demanded much nourishment, and it was not denied.
At last the great day came when he was allowed to kill a deer if he
could. Both Ross and Shif'less Sol had interceded for him. "The boy's
getting big and strong an' it's time he learned," said Ross. "His hand's
steady enough an' his eye's good enough already," said Shif'less Sol,
and his father agreeing with them told them to take him and teach him.
Two miles away, near the bank of the river, was a spring to which the
game often came to drink, and for this spring they started a little
while before sundown, Henry carrying his rifle on his shoulder, and his
heart fluttering. He felt his years increase suddenly and his figure
expand with equal abruptness. He had become a man and he was going forth
to slay big game. Yet despite his new manhood the blood would run to his
head and he felt his nerves trembling. He grasped his precious rifle
more firmly and stole a look out of the corner of his eye at its barrel
as it lay across his left shoulder. Though a smaller weapon it was
modeled after the famous Western rifle, which, with the ax, won the
wilderness. The stock was of hard maple wood delicately carved, and the
barrel was comparatively long, slender, and of blue steel. The sights
were as fine-drawn as a hair. When Henry stood the gun beside himself,
it was just as tall as he. He carried, too, a powderhorn, and the horn,
which was as white as snow, was scraped so thin as to be transparent,
thus enabling its owner to know just how much powder it contained,
without taking the trouble of pouring it out. His bullets and wadding he
carried in a small leather pouch by his side.
When they reached the spring the sun was still a half hour high and
filled the west with a red glow. The forest there was tinted by it, and
seen thus in the coming twilight with those weird crimsons and scarlets
showing through it, the wilderness looked very lonely and desolate. An
ordinary boy, at the coming of night would have been awed, if alone, by
the stillness of the great unknown spaces, but it found an answering
chord in Henry.
"Wind's blowin' from the west," said Sol, and so they went to the
eastern side of the spring, where they lay down beside a fallen log at a
fair distance. There was another log, much closer to the spring, but
Ross conferring aside with Sol chose the farther one. "We want to teach
the boy how to shoot an' be of some use to himself, not to slaughter,"
said Ross. Then the three remained there, a long time, and noiseless.
Henry was learning early one of the first great lessons of the forest,
which is silence. But he knew that he could have learned this lesson
alone. He already felt himself superior in some ways to Ross and Sol,
but he liked them too well to tell them so, or to affect even equality
in the lore of the wilderness.
The sun went down behind the Western forest, and the night came on,
heavy and dark. A light wind began to moan among the trees. Henry heard
the faint bubble of the water in the spring, and saw beside him the
forms of his two comrades. But they were so still that they might have
been dead. An hour passed and his eyes growing more used to the dimness,
he saw better. There was still nothing at the spring, but by and by Ross
put his hand gently upon his arm, and Henry, as if by instinct, looked
in the right direction. There at the far edge of the forest was a deer,
a noble stag, glancing warily about him.
The stag was a fine enough animal to Ross and Sol, but to Henry's
unaccustomed eyes he seemed gigantic, the mightiest of his kind that
ever walked the face of the earth.
The deer gazed cautiously, raising his great head, until his antlers
looked to Henry like the branching boughs of a tree. The wind was
blowing toward his hidden foes, and brought him no omen of coming
danger. He stepped into the open and again glanced around the circle. It
seemed to Henry that he was staring directly into the deer's eyes, and
could see the fire shining there.
"Aim at that spot there by the shoulder, when he stoops down to drink,"
said Ross in the lowest of tones.
Satisfied now that no enemy was near, the stag walked to the spring.
Then he began to lower slowly the great antlers, and his head approached
the water. Henry slipped the barrel of his rifle across the log and
looked down the sights. He was seized with a tremor, but Ross and
Shif'less Sol, with a magnanimity that did them credit, pretended not to
notice it. The boy soon mastered the feeling, but then, to his great
surprise, he was attacked by another emotion. Suddenly he began to have
pity, and a fellow-feeling for the stag. It, too, was in the great
wilderness, rejoicing in the woods and the grass and the running streams
and had done no harm. It seemed sad that so fine a life should end,
without warning and for so little.
The feeling was that of a young boy, the instinct of one who had not
learned to kill, and he suppressed it. Men had not yet thought to spare
the wild animals, or to consider them part of a great brotherhood, least
of all on the border, where the killing of game was a necessity. And so
Henry, after a moment's hesitation, the cause of which he himself
scarcely knew, picked the spot near the shoulder that Ross had
mentioned, and pulled the trigger.
The stag stood for a moment or two as if dazed, then leaped into the air
and ran to the edge of the woods, where he pitched down head foremost.
His body quivered for a little while and then lay still.
Henry was proud of his marksmanship, but he felt some remorse, too, when
he looked upon his victim. Yet he was eager to tell his father and his
young sister and brother of his success. They took off the pelt and cut
up the deer. A part of the haunch Henry ate for dinner and the antlers
were fastened over the fireplace, as the first important hunting trophy
won by the eldest son of the house.
Henry did not boast much of his triumph, although he noticed with secret
pride the awe of the children. His best friend, Paul Cotter, openly
expressed his admiration, but Braxton Wyatt, a boy of his own age, whom
he did not like, sneered and counted it as nothing. He even cast doubt
upon the reality of the deed, intimating that perhaps Ross or Sol had
fired the shot, and had allowed Henry to claim the credit.
Henry now felt incessantly the longing for the wilderness, but, for the
present, he helped his father furnish their house. It was too late to
plant crops that year, nor were the qualities of the soil yet altogether
known. It was rich beyond a doubt, but they could learn only by trial
what sort of seed suited it best. So they let that wait a while, and
continued the work of making themselves tight and warm for the winter.
The skins of deer and buffalo and beaver, slain by the hunters, were
dried in the sun, and they hung some of the finer ones on the walls of
the rooms to make them look more cozy and picturesque. Mrs. Ware also
put two or three on the floors, though the border women generally
scorned them for such uses, thinking them in the way. Henry also helped
his father make stools and chairs, the former a very simple task,
consisting of a flat piece of wood, chopped or sawed out, in which three
holes were bored to receive the legs, the latter made of a section of
sapling, an inch or so in diameter. But the baskets required longer and
more tedious work. They cut green withes, split them into strips and
then plaiting them together formed the basket. In this Mrs. Ware and
even the little girl helped. They also made tables and a small stone
furnace or bake-oven for the kitchen.
Their chief room now looked very cozy. In one corner stood a bedstead
with low, square posts, the bed covered with a pure white counterpane.
At the foot of the bedstead was a large heavy chest, which served as
bureau, sofa and dressing case. In the center of the room stood a big
walnut table, on the top of which rested a nest of wooden trays,
flanked, on one side, by a nicely folded tablecloth, and on the other by
a butcher knife and a Bible. In a corner was a cupboard consisting of a
set of shelves set into the logs, and on these shelves were the
blue-edged plates and yellow-figured teacups and blue teapot that Mrs.
Ware had received long ago from her mother. The furniture in the
remainder of the house followed this pattern.
The heaviest labor of all was to extend the "clearing"; that is, to cut
down trees and get the ground ready for planting the crops next spring,
and in this Henry helped, for he was able to wield an ax blow for blow
with a grown man. When he did not have to work he went often to the
river, which was within sight of Wareville, and caught fish. Nobody
except the men, who were always armed, and who knew how to take care of
themselves, was allowed to go more than a mile from the palisade, but
Henry was trusted as far as the river; then the watchman in the lookout
on top of the highest blockhouse could see him or any who might come,
and there, too, he often lingered.
He did not hate his work, yet he could not say that he liked it, and,
although he did not know it, the love of the wild man's ways was
creeping into his blood. The influence of the great forests, of the vast
unknown spaces, was upon him. He could lie peacefully in the shade of a
tree for an hour at a time, dreaming of rivers and mountains farther on
in the depths of the wilderness. He felt a kinship with the wild things,
and once as he lay perfectly still with his eyes almost closed, a stag,
perhaps the brother to the one that he had killed, came and looked at
him out of great soft eyes. It did not seem odd at the time to Henry
that the stag should do so; he took it then as a friendly act, and lest
he should alarm this new comrade of the woods he did not stir or even
raise his eyelids. The stag gazed at him a few moments, and then,
tossing his great antlers, turned and walked off in a graceful and
dignified way through the woods. Henry wondered where the deer would go,
and if it would be far. He wished that he, too, could roam the
wilderness so lightly, wandering where he wished, having no cares and
beholding new scenes every day. That would be a life worth living.
The next morning his mother said to his father:
"John, the boy is growing wild."
"Yes," replied the father. "They say it often happens with those who are
taken young into the wilderness. The forest lays a spell upon them when
they are easy to receive impressions."
The mother looked troubled, but Mr. Ware laughed.
"Don't bother about it," he said. "It can be cured. We have merely to
teach him the sense of responsibility."
This they proceeded to do.
CHAPTER III
LOST IN THE WILDERNESS
The method by which Mr. and Mrs. Ware undertook to teach Henry a sense
of responsibility was an increase of work. Founding a new state was no
light matter, and he must do his share. Since he loved to fish, it
became his duty to supply the table with fish, and that, too, at regular
hours, and he also began to think of traps and snares, which he would
set in the autumn for game. It was always wise for the pioneer to save
his powder and lead, the most valuable of his possessions and the
hardest to obtain. Any food that could be procured without its use was a
welcome addition.
But fishing remained his easiest task, and he did it all with a pole
that he cut with his clasp knife, a string and a little piece of bent
and stiffened wire. He caught perch, bass, suckers, trout, sunfish,
catfish, and other kinds, the names of which he did not know. Sometimes
when his hook and line had brought him all that was needed, and the day
was hot, he would take off his clothing and plunge into the deep, cool
pools. Often his friend, Paul Cotter, was with him. Paul was a year
younger than Henry, and not so big. Hence the larger boy felt himself,
in a certain sense, Paul's teacher and protector, which gave him a
comfortable feeling, and a desire to help his comrade as much as he
could.
He taught the smaller lad new tricks in swimming, and scarcely a day
passed when two sunburned, barefooted boys did not go to the river,
quickly throw off their clothing, and jump into the clear water. There
they swam and floated for a long time, dived, and ducked each other, and
then lay on the grass in the sun until they dried.
"Paul," said Henry once, as they were stretched thus on the bank,
"wouldn't you like to have nothing to do, but wander through the woods
just as you pleased, sleep wherever you wished, and kill game when you
grew hungry, just like the Indians?"
Henry's eyes were on the black line of the forest, and the blue haze of
the sky beyond. His spirit was away in the depths of the unknown.
"I don't know," replied Paul. "I guess a white boy has to become a white
man, after a while, and they say that the difference between a white man
and the Indian is that the white man has to work."
"But the Indians get along without it," said Henry.
"No they don't," replied Paul. "We win all the country because we've
learned how to do things while we are working."
Yet Henry was unconvinced, and his thoughts wandered far into the black
forest and the blue haze.
The cattle pastured near the deepest of the swimming holes, and it often
fell to the lot of the boys to bring them into the palisade at sunset.
This was a duty of no little importance, because if any of the cattle
wandered away into the forest and were lost, they could not be replaced.
It was now the latter half of summer, and the grass and foliage were
fast turning brown in the heat. Late on the afternoon of one of the very
hottest days Henry and Paul went to the deepest swimming hole. There had
not been a breath of air stirring since morning; not a blade of grass,
not a leaf quivered. The skies burned like a sheet of copper.
The boys panted, and their clothing, wet with perspiration, clung to
them. The earth was hot under their feet. Quickly they threw off their
garments and sprang into the water. How cool and grateful it felt! There
they lingered long, and did not notice the sudden obscurity of the sun
and darkening of the southwest.
A slight wind sprang up presently, and the dry leaves and grass began to
rustle. There was thunder in the distance and a stroke of lightning. The
boys were aroused, and scrambling out of the water put on their
clothing.
"A storm's coming," said Henry, who was weatherwise, "and we must get
the cattle in."
These sons of the forest did not fear rain, but they hurried on their
clothing, and they noticed, too, how rapidly the storm was gathering.
The heat had been great for days, and the earth was parched and thirsty.
The men had talked in the evening of rain, and said how welcome it would
be, and now the boys shared the general feeling. The drought would be
ended. The thirsty earth would drink deep and grow green again.
The rolling clouds, drawn like a great curtain over the southwest,
advanced and covered all the heavens. The flashes of lightning followed
each other so fast that, at times, they seemed continuous; the forest
groaned as it bent before the wind. Then the great drops fell, and soon
they were beating the earth like volleys of pistol bullets. Fragments of
boughs, stripped off by the wind, swept by. Never had the boys in their
Eastern home known such thunder and lightning. The roar of one was
always in their ears, and the flash of the other always in their eyes.
The frightened cattle were gathered into a group, pressing close
together for company and protection. The boys hurried them toward the
stockade, but one cow, driven by terror, broke from the rest and ran
toward the woods. Agile Henry, not willing to lose a single straggler,
pursued the fugitive, and Paul, wishing to be as zealous, followed. The
rest of the cattle, being so near and obeying the force of habit, went
on into the stockade.
It was the wildest cow of the herd that made a plunge for the woods, and
Henry, knowing her nature, expected trouble. So he ran as fast as he
could, and he was not aware until they were in the forest that Paul was
close behind him. Then he shouted:
"Go back, Paul! I'll bring her in."
But Paul would not turn. There was fire in his blood. He considered it
as much his duty to help as it was Henry's. Moreover, he would not
desert his comrade.
The fugitive, driven by the storm acting upon its wild nature, continued
at great speed, and the panting boys were not able to overtake her. So
on the trio went, plunging through the woods, and saving themselves from
falls, or collisions with trees, only by the light from the flashes of
lightning. Many boys, even on the border, would have turned back, but
there was something tenacious in Henry's nature; he had undertaken to do
a thing, and he did not wish to give it up. Besides that cow was too
valuable. And Paul would not leave his comrade.
Away the cow went, and behind her ran her pursuers. The rain came
rushing and roaring through the woods, falling now in sheets, while
overhead the lightning still burned, and the thunder still crashed,
though with less frequency. Both the boys were drenched, but they did
not mind it; they did not even know it at the time. The lightning died
presently, the thunder ceased to rumble, and then the darkness fell like
a great blanket over the whole forest. The chase was blotted out from
them, and the two boys, stopping, grasped each other's hands for the
sake of company. They could not see twenty feet before them, but the
rain still poured.
"We'll have to give her up," said Henry reluctantly. "We couldn't follow
a whole herd of buffaloes in all this black night."
"Maybe we can find her to-morrow," said Paul.
"Maybe so," replied Henry. "We've got to wait anyhow. Let's go home."
They started back for Wareville, keeping close together, lest they lose
each other in the darkness, and they realized suddenly that they were
uncomfortable. The rain was coming in such sheets directly in their
faces that it half blinded them, now and then their feet sank deep in
mire and their drenched bodies began to grow cold. The little log houses
in which they lived now seemed to them palaces, fit for a king, and they
hastened their footsteps, often tripping on vines or running into
bushes. But Henry was trying to see through the dark woods.
"We ought to be near the clearing," he said.
They stopped and looked all about, seeking to see a light. They knew
that one would be shining from the tower of the blockhouse as a guide to
them. But they saw none. They had misjudged the distance, so they
thought, and they pushed on a half hour longer, but there was still no
light, nor did they come to a clearing. Then they paused. Dark as it was
each saw a look of dismay on the face of the other.
"We've come the wrong way!" exclaimed Paul.
"Maybe we have," reluctantly admitted Henry.
But their dismay lasted only a little while. They were strong boys, used
to the wilderness, and they did not fear even darkness and wandering
through the woods. Moreover, they were sure that they should find
Wareville long before midnight.
They changed their course and continued the search. The rain ceased by
and by, the clouds left the heavens, and the moon came out, but they saw
nothing familiar about them. The great woods were dripping with water,
and it was the only sound they heard, besides that made by themselves.
They stopped again, worn out and disconsolate at last. All their walking
only served to confuse them the more. Neither now had any idea of the
direction in which Wareville lay, and to be lost in the wilderness was a
most desperate matter. They might travel a thousand miles, should
strength last them for so great a journey, and never see a single human
being. They leaned against the rough bark of a great oak tree, and
stared blankly at each other.
"What are we to do?" asked Paul.
"I can't say," replied Henry.
The two boys still looked blank, but at last they laughed--and each
laughed at the other's grewsome face. Then they began once more to cast
about them. The cold had passed and warm winds were blowing up from the
south. The forest was drying, and Henry and Paul, taking off their
coats, wrung the water from them. They were strong lads, inured to many
hardships of the border and the forest, and they did not fear ill
results from a mere wetting. Nevertheless, they wished to be
comfortable, and under the influence of the warm wind they soon found
themselves dry again. But they were so intensely sleepy that they could
scarcely keep their eyes open, and now the wilderness training of both
came into use.
It was a hilly country, with many outcroppings of stone and cavelike
openings in the sides of the steep but low hills, and such a place as
this the boys now sought. But it was a long hunt and they grew more
tired and sleepy at every step. They were hungry, too, but if they might
only sleep they could forget that. They heard again the hooting of owls
and the wind, moaning among the leaves, made strange noises. Once there
was a crash in a thicket beside them, and they jumped in momentary
alarm, but it was only a startled deer, far more scared than they,
running through the bushes, and Henry was ashamed of his nervous
impulse.
They found at last their resting place, a sheltered ledge of dry stone
in the hollow of a hill. The stone arched above them, and it was dark in
the recess, but the boys were too tired now to worry about shadows. They
crept into the hollow, and, scraping up fallen leaves to soften the hard
stone, lay down. Both were off to slumberland in less than five minutes.
The hollow faced the East, and the bright sun, shining into their eyes,
awakened them at last. Henry sprang up, amazed. The skies were a silky
blue, with little white clouds sailing here and there. The forest,
new-washed by the rain, smelt clean and sweet. The south wind was still
blowing. The world was bright and beautiful, but he was conscious of an
acute pain at the center of his being. That is, he was increasingly
hungry. Paul showed equal surprise, and was a prey to the same annoying
sensation in an important region. He looked up at the sun, and found
that it was almost directly overhead, indicating noon.