CHAPTER IV
LESSONS IN PILOTING
At daylight the next morning old Martin roused the boy, reminding him that he “was to begin learning his trade” that day. “And there are many things to learn about this land-piloting, too,” he told him. Meanwhile the old hunter took the axe and went into the woods for fuel while Larry was putting on his shoes and his coat—the only garments he had removed on going to bed the night before.
The air was very cold and everything frozen hard, and Larry’s teeth were chattering before Martin returned and started the fire. “Now notice how I lay these sticks and make this fire,” Martin instructed. “I am making it to cook our breakfast over, so I’ll build it in a very different way from what I should if I only wanted it for heating our tent. Learning how to build at least three different kinds of fires is a very important part of your education.”
The old man selected two small logs about four feet long and seven inches in diameter. He laid these side by side on the ground, separating them at one end a distance of about six inches and at the other end something over a foot. In the space between the logs he laid small branches and twigs, and lighted them, and in a jiffy had a hot fire going.
Larry noticed that Martin had placed the logs so that they lay at right angles to the direction from which the wind was blowing; and now as the heat thawed out the ground, the hunter took a sharp pointed stick and dug away the earth from under the log almost its whole length on the windward side. The wind, sucking in under this, created a draught from beneath, which made the fire burn fiercely.
Then Martin placed two frying pans filled with slices of ham and soggy, grease-covered bread over the fire, the tops of the two logs holding the pans rigidly in place. Next he took the wide-bottomed coffee pot, filled it with water, threw in a handful of coffee, and placed the pot at the end where the logs were near enough together to hold it firmly.
“Pretty good stove, isn’t it,” he commented, when he had finished.
“You see that kind of a fire does several things that you want it to, and doesn’t do several others that you don’t want. It makes all the heat go right up against the bottom of the pans where you need it most, and it only takes a little wood to get a lot of heat. What is more, the sides of the logs keep the heat from burning your face and your hands when you have to stir things, as a big camp-fire would. You can always tell a woodsman by the kind of fire he builds.”
Presently the coffee boiled over and Martin set it off, and by that time the ham and the bread were ready. And while they were eating their breakfast he set a pail of water on the fire to heat. “That’s to wash the dishes in,” he said. “A real woodsman washes his dishes as soon as he finishes each meal—does it a good deal more religiously than he washes his face or his hands, I fear.”
When breakfast was finished, and the last dish cleaned, Martin said: “Now you’ll have an hour’s practice at target-shooting. Take your gun and come along.”
He led the way to the pile of boxes, and hunted out three or four solid looking cases. These were filled with paper boxes containing cartridges—enough to supply an army, Larry thought. Tearing some of these open, Martin instructed the boy to fill the right hand pocket of his jacket with the little twenty-twos. “And always remember that they are in that pocket and nowhere else,” he instructed.
Next he opened a bundle and took out a belt on which there were a row of little leather pockets with snap fasteners. He filled these pockets with the larger calibre cartridges, six to each pocket, and instructed Larry to buckle it on over his coat. Then he led the way to a level piece of ground just above the camp, and having paced off fifty yards he fastened the round top of a large tin can against a tree and stepped back to the firing line.
“I’ll try one shot first to see if the sights are true,” he said, as he slipped a cartridge into each barrel. Then raising the gun to his shoulder he glanced through the sights and fired. “Go and see where that hit,” he told the boy.
Larry, running to the target, found the little hole of the .22 bullet almost in the center of the tin, and shouted his discovery exultantly. Martin had fired so quickly after bringing the gun to his shoulder that the boy could scarcely believe his eyes, although the result of the shot did not seem to surprise the old hunter.
“Don’t try the .38 yet,” he instructed, handing Larry the gun. “Fire twenty shots with the .22, and go and see where each shot strikes as soon as you fire and have loaded. And don’t forget to bring the gun to half-cock, and to load before you leave your tracks. That is one of the main things to remember. After a little practice you will do it instinctively, so that you will always have a loaded gun in your hands. It may save your life sometime when you run up to a buck that you have knocked over and only stunned.”
The boy took the gun and began his lesson, the hunter leaving him without waiting to see how he went about it. A few minutes later, when Larry had finished the twenty rounds, he found the old man going through the dismantled yacht.
“Just making a final inspection to see if there is anything left that we may need,” the old hunter said. “There’s a king’s ransom in here yet, but we can’t use it on our trip, and in another twenty-four hours it may be on the bottom of the ocean.”
Larry, trying to conceal the pride he felt, handed Martin the tin target he had brought with him. The old hunter examined it gravely, counting the number of bullet holes carefully. There were ten of them, including the one Martin had made.
“Eleven misses in twenty shots,” he commented, simply.
The boy, who was swelling with pride, looked crestfallen.
“But the last five all hit it,” he explained. “At first I hit all around it, and then I hit it almost every other time, and at last I hit it five times straight.”
“Put up a new target and try ten more,” was Martin’s only comment. But when Larry had gone he chuckled to himself with satisfaction. “Some shooting for a city boy!” he said to himself; “but I won’t spoil him by telling him so.”
When Larry returned with the second target there were seven bullet holes in it; but still the old hunter made no comment on the score. “Now go back and try ten of the big ones, and remember that you are shooting at big game this time,” he admonished.
Larry returned slowly to his shooting range. Martin was a very hard and unreasonable task-master, he decided. But, remembering that he had hit the mark so frequently before, he resolved to better his score this time. This was just the resolution Martin had hoped he would make.
So the boy fastened the target in place, adjusted the hammer for firing the larger cartridge. Then he shut his teeth together hard, took a careful but quick aim, for Martin had explained that slow shooting was not the best for hunting, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the loud report startled him, and his shoulder was jerked back by the recoil. It didn’t hurt, exactly, for the aluminum butt plate was covered with a springy rubber pad; but it showed him very forcibly what a world of power there must be in those stubby little cylinders of brass and lead.
He forgot his astonishment, however, when on going to the target, he found that the big bullet had pierced the tin almost in the center; and as he stood gazing at the hole he heard a low chuckle that cleared away all his dark clouds. Old Martin had slipped up behind him quietly; and there was no mistaking the old hunter’s wrinkled smile of satisfaction.
“Now you see what you can do with her,” the old man said, his eyes twinkling. “If that tin had been a moose’s forehead he’d be a dead moose, sure enough. Did the noise and the kick surprise you?”
“Yes, it did,” Larry admitted honestly; “but it won’t next time—it never will again. And I am going to kill just nine more moose with these cartridges.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said Martin, with frank admiration; “after a few more shots you’ll get used to the recoil, and pretty soon you won’t even feel it. But you musn’t expect to make nine more bull’s-eyes just yet.”
The old hunter went back to his work at the pile of plunder under the big canvas, and Larry fired his nine remaining rounds. Then he sought the old man again, but as Martin asked no question about the result of the shots, Larry did not volunteer any information. Presently Martin looked up from his work.
“I suppose you’ve cleaned the rifle now that you have finished practice for the morning?” he inquired.
Larry shook his head.
“Well that’s the very first thing to do, now, and always,” said the hunter.
It took quite a time for the boy to clean and oil the gun so that he felt it would pass inspection, and when he returned to Martin the old man was busy with an assortment of interesting looking parcels, placing them in separate piles. He was making notes on a piece of paper, while both the dogs were sniffing about the packages, greatly interested.
The old hunter sent Larry to bring two of the toboggans that he had saved from the yacht. They looked like ordinary toboggans to the boy, but Martin called his attention to some of their good points which he explained while he was packing them with what he called an “experimental load,” made up from the pile of parcels he had been sorting.
Each of the toboggans had fastened to its top a stout canvas bag, the bottom of which was just the size of the top of the sled. The sides of the bag were about four feet high, each bag forming, in effect, a canvas box fastened securely to the toboggan. Martin pointed out the advantages of such an arrangement in one terse sentence. “When that bag is tied up you can’t lose anything off your sled without losing the sled itself,” he said. “And if you had ever done much sledging,” he added, “you’d know what that means.”
“The usual way of doing it,” Martin explained, “is to pack your sled as firmly as you can, and then draw a canvas over it and lash it down. And that is a very good way, too. But this bag arrangement beats it in every way, particularly in taking care of the little things that are likely to spill out and be lost. With this bag there is no losing anything, big or little. You simply pack the big things on the bottom, and then instead of having to fool around half an hour fastening the little things on and freezing your fingers while you do it, you throw them all in on top, close up the end of the bag, and strap it down tight. You see it will ride then wherever the sled goes, for it is a part of the sled itself.”
Larry noticed that most of the larger parcels on the sled were done up in long, slender bags, and labeled. Martin explained that the bags were all made of waterproof material, and carefully sealed, and that narrow bags could be packed more firmly and rode in place better than short, stubby ones. A large proportion of these bags were labeled “Pemmican” and the name excited the boy’s curiosity.
“It’s something good to eat, I know,” he said; “but what is it made of, Martin?”
“It’s an Indian dish that made it possible for Peary to reach the Pole,” Martin assured him. “It is soup, and fish, and meat and vegetables, and dessert, all in one—only it hasn’t hardly any of those things in it. If you eat a chunk of it as big as your fist every day and give the same sized chunk to your dog, you won’t need any other kind of food, and your dog won’t. It has more heat and nourishment in it, ounce for ounce, than any other kind of food ever invented. That’s why I am going to haul so much of it on our sleds.”
While he was talking he had slit open one of the bags and showed Larry the contents, which resembled rather dirty, tightly pressed brown sugar.
“Gee, it looks good!” the boy exclaimed. “Let’s have some of it for supper.”
“You needn’t wait for supper,” Martin told him. “Eat all you want of it, we’ve got at least a ton more than we can carry away with us.” And he cut off a big lump with his hunting knife and handed it to the boy.
Larry’s mouth watered as he took it. He had visions of maple-sugar feasts on this extra ton of Indian delicacy close at hand, as he took a regular boy’s mouthful, for a starter. But the next minute his expression changed to one of utmost disgust, and he ran to the water pail to rinse his mouth. He paused long enough, however, to hurl the remaining piece at the laughing hunter. But Martin ducked the throw, while Kim and Jack, the dogs, raced after the lump, Kim reaching it first and swallowing it at a gulp.
“What made you change your mind so suddenly?” the old hunter asked when he could get his breath. “You seemed right hungry a minute ago, and I expected to see you eat at least a pound or two.”
“Eat that stuff!” Larry answered, between gulps from the water bucket. “I’d starve to death before I’d touch another grain of it.”
“That’s what you think now,” the old man answered, becoming serious again;—“that’s what I thought, too, the first time I tasted it. It tasted to me then like a mixture of burnt moccasin leather and boot grease. But wait until you have hit the trail for ten hours in the cold, when you’re too tired to lift your feet from the ground, and you’ll think differently. You’ll agree with me then that a chunk of this pemmican as big as your two fists is only just one third big enough, and tastes like the best maple sugar you ever ate.”
But the boy still made wry faces, and shook his head. “What do they put into it to make it taste so?” he asked. “Or why don’t they flavor it with something?”
“Oh, they flavor it,” Martin explained, laughing. “They flavor it with grease poured all over it after they have dried the meat that it is made of, and pounded it up into fine grains. But take my word for it that when you try it next time, somewhere out there in the wilderness two or three weeks from now, you’ll say that they flavor it just right.”
“But we needn’t worry about that now,” he added. “What we need more than anything else for to-night is a big lot of fire-wood, green and dry both. Take the axe and get in all you can between now and night. I want plenty of wood to use in teaching you how to make two other kinds of fires. Do you suppose you could cut down a tree about a foot in diameter?”
Larry thought he could. Some lumbermen in the Adirondacks had shown him how a tree could be felled in any direction by chopping a deep notch low down, and another higher up on the opposite side. He knew also about stepping to one side and away from the butt to avoid the possible kick-back of the trunk when the tree fell.
So he selected a tree of the right size as near the tent as he could find one, felled it after much futile chopping and many rests for breath, and cut it into logs about six feet long. When he had finished he called the two dogs, put a harness on each, hitched them up tandem, and fastened the hauling rope to the end of one of the logs. Martin had suggested that he do this, so as to get accustomed to driving the dogs, and get the big fellows accustomed to being driven by him.
The dogs, full of energy were eager for the work, and at the word sprang forward, yelping and straining at the straps, exerting every ounce of strength in their powerful bodies. The log was a heavy one, and at first they could barely move it; but after creeping along for a few inches it gradually gained speed on the thin snow, and was brought into camp on the run. Even in the excitement of shouting to the struggling dogs and helping with an occasional push, Larry noticed the intelligence shown by the animals in swinging from one side to the other, feeling for the best position to get leverage, and taking advantage of the likely places.
They seemed to enter into the spirit of the work, too, rushing madly back to the woods after each log or limb had been deposited at the tent, and waiting impatiently for Larry to make up the bundles of wood and fasten the draw rope. Working at this high pressure the boy and dogs soon had a huge pile of fire-wood at Martin’s disposal, and by the time the old hunter had finished his task, had laid in a three days’ supply.
“Now you build a ‘cooking fire,’ such as I made this morning, and get supper going,” said Martin, coming over to the tent; “and while you are doing that I’ll be fixing up another kind of a fire—one called a ‘trapper’s fire,’ which is built for throwing heat into a tent.”
The old hunter then drove two stakes into the ground directly in front of the opening of the tent and six feet from it, the stakes being about five feet apart and set at right angles to the open flaps. Against these stakes he piled three of the green logs Larry had cut, one on top of the other like the beginning of a log house, and held them in place by two stakes driven in front, opposite the two first stakes. Next he selected two green sticks about four inches in diameter and three feet long, and placed them like the andirons in a fireplace, the wall of logs serving as a reflecting surface like the back wall of a chimney. Across these logs he now laid a fire, just as one would in a fireplace.
Larry all this time had been busy getting the supper, Martin offering a suggestion now and then. When he saw that the meal was almost ready the old man spread a piece of canvas on the ground just inside the opening of the tent and before the log fire he had laid, and set out the plates and cups, and when Larry announced that the feast was ready Martin lighted the fire in front of the logs.
He had a double motive in this—to show the boy how to make a heating fire and to furnish heat for the evening. For the weather was growing very cold, and he had some work that he wished to do which would require light to guide his fingers and heat for keeping them warm.
With the protection of the tent back of them and the roaring fire in front they toasted their shins and ate leisurely. To Larry it all seemed like one grand lark, and he said so.
“I’m afraid you will change your mind about it being such a lark before we are through with it,” the old man said presently. “It won’t be a lark for either of us. But I’m beginning to feel more hopeful about it, now that I see that you can learn things, and are willing to try.”
He lighted his pipe and smoked thoughtfully for a few minutes. Larry too, was thoughtful, turning over in his mind the old hunter’s last remark.
“And so you have been thinking all this time that I might be in the way—that perhaps you would be better off if you were alone, and didn’t have a boy like me on your hands?” the boy asked presently.
For a little time the old man did not answer, puffing his pipe and gazing silently at the fire. At last he said:
“I couldn’t help feeling a little that way at first, Larry. The job on our hands is one for a strong man, not for a city boy. But I’m feeling different now that I see how you take hold and are willing to work, and try to learn all the things I tell you. And wouldn’t it be funny,” he added, with a twinkle in his kindly eye, “if, sometime, I should get into trouble and you have to help me out of it instead of my helping you all the time? A fellow can never tell what strange things may happen on the trail; and that is one reason why no man should start on a journey through the woods in the winter time alone.”
Presently the old man knocked the ashes from his pipe and set about cleaning the dishes, Larry helping him; but neither of them were in talking mood, each busy with his own thoughts. When they had finished the hunter said:
“Now I’ll show you how to make an Indian fire, the kind the Indian still likes best of all, and the best kind to use when wood is scarce or when you want to boil a pot of tea or get a quick meal.”
The old hunter then gathered an armful of small limbs, and laid them on the ground in a circle like the spokes of a wheel, the butts over-lapping at the center where the hub of the wheel would be. With a few small twigs he lighted a fire where the butts joined, the flames catching quickly and burning in a fierce vertical flame.
“This fire will make the most heat for the least amount of wood and throw the heat in all directions,” Martin explained. “And that is why it is the best kind of a fire for heating a round tent, such as an Indian tepee.”
“But why did the Indian have to care about the amount of wood he burned?” Larry asked. “He had all the wood he wanted, just for the chopping of it, didn’t he?”
The old man smiled indulgently. “Yes, he surely had all the wood he wanted just for the chopping—millions of cords of it. But how was he going to chop it without anything to chop it with, do you think? You forget that the old Indians didn’t have so much as a knife, let alone an axe. And that explains the whole thing: that’s why the Indian made small fires and built skin tepees instead of log houses.
“If you left your axe and your knife here at the tent and went into the woods to gather wood, Larry, how long do you suppose it would take you to collect a day’s supply for our big fire? You wouldn’t have much trouble in getting a few armfuls of fallen and broken branches but very soon you’d find the supply running short. The logs would be too large to handle, and most of the limbs too big to break. And so you would soon be cold and hungry, with a month’s supply of dry timber right at your front dooryard.
“But it’s all so different when you can give a tap here and there with your axe, or a few strokes with your hunting knife. And this was just what the poor Indian couldn’t do; for he had no cutting tool of any kind worth the name until the white man came. So he learned to use little sticks for his fire, and built his house of skins stretched over small poles.
“It is hard for us to realize that cutting down a tree was about the hardest task an Indian could ever attempt. Why the strongest Indian in the tribe, working as hard as he could with the best tool he could find, couldn’t cut down a tree as quickly as you could with your hunting knife. He could break rocks to pieces by striking them with other rocks, and he could dig caves in the earth; but when it came to cutting down a tree he was stumped. The big trees simply stood up and laughed at him. No wonder he worshipped the forests and the tree gods!
“Of course when the white man came and supplied axes, hatchets, and knives, he solved the problem of fire-wood for the Indian. But he never changed the Indian’s idea about small fires. Too many thousand generations of Indian ancestors had been making that kind of a fire all their lives; and the Indian is a great fellow to stick to fixed habits. He adopted the steel hatchet and the knife, but he stuck to his round fire and his round tepee.
“And yet, although he had never seen a steel hatchet until the white man gave him one, he improved the design of the white man’s axe right away. The white man’s hatchet was a broad-bladed, clumsy thing, heavy to carry and hard to handle. The Indian designed a thin, narrow-bladed, light hatchet—the tomahawk—that would bite deeper into the wood and so cut faster than the white man’s thick hatchet. And every woodsman now knows that for fast chopping, with little work, a hatchet made on the lines of the tomahawk beats out the other kind.”
The old man took his own hunting axe from the sheath at his belt and held it up for inspection.
“You see it’s just a modified tomahawk,” he said, “with long blade and thin head, and only a little toy axe, to look at. But it has cut down many good-sized trees when I needed them, all the same. And the axe you were using this afternoon, as you probably noticed, is simply a bigger brother of this little fellow, exactly the same shape. It’s the kind the trappers use in the far North, because it will do all the work of a four-pound axe, and is only half as heavy. We’ve got some of those big axes over there under the tarpaulin, but we’ll leave them behind when we hit the trail, and take that small one with us.”
While they were talking Martin had been getting out a parcel containing clothing and odds and ends, and now he sat down before the fire to “do some work” as he expressed it.
“If you’re not too sleepy to listen,” he said, “I’ll tell you a story that I know about a little Algonquin Indian boy.”
Larry was never too tired to listen to Martin’s stories; and so he curled up on a blanket before the fire, while the old man worked and talked.