The strange oval footprint was at least ten inches long. The creature that had made it was surely heavy, for it had sunk deep into the ground; and there were four claw-marks.
“Surely that’s not a bear-track,” said Alice.
“More like the track of a young elephant, I should think,” Carl returned. “That is, if elephants had claws and ever robbed beehives.”
It was not easy to follow the trail over the hard ground. Here and there in soft spots they found the huge foot-marks. Apparently the beast had rambled all over the apiary, coming close to the trap several times, but always avoiding it. They followed it across the road, and there it gave out completely.
Completely bewildered, Alice and Carl returned to the cabin for their delayed breakfast. The raid on the apiary was a mystery. They knew of no animal in the Canadian woods that could have made such a track, though all through breakfast and afterward they discussed and guessed and tried to imagine some explanation. At last Carl, half in joke, began to recount Indian legends of the wendigo,—a giant, cannibal demon supposed to prey on hunters in the North,—until Alice implored him to stop.
“I shall be afraid to go to bed to-night,” she said. “Suppose I awoke and saw that great terrible thing looking in through the window at me!”
“Perhaps we’ll catch it in the trap,” Carl tried to reassure her. “Don’t be frightened, Allie. The wendigo doesn’t leave any tracks where it walks, and besides I don’t believe it would eat honey. It loves stronger stuff, like blood and bones.”
“Oh, stop!” cried Alice, putting her hands to her ears.
Thinking it over, Carl came to the conclusion that the tracks must have been made by a very large bear, whose feet were deformed in some way, perhaps by an injury. Perhaps only one foot was misshapen, for he had never clearly made out more than one track at a time. Anyhow this was the only explanation that he could give for the strange trail.
When darkness fell they gathered a great store of wood and sat late in the bright firelight. They hesitated about separating to their rooms, and Alice, at last, flatly refused to go. Carl did not insist, and they brought out blankets and spread them on the floor by the fire, laying both guns loaded and handy.
Neither of them slept well. Several times Carl jumped up, fancying that he had heard some sound outside; but all was quiet when he opened the door. But toward daylight they both fell soundly asleep and did not awake until the sun was high over the cedars.
The trap had not been sprung; the bees had not been disturbed, and there were no fresh tracks in the yard. Carl and Alice both felt decidedly languid after their bad night, but the hot breakfast coffee was stimulating, and in the bright sunlight they began to feel much more courageous.
Shortly after breakfast Alice caught sight of one of Carl’s cats, eating a quantity of trout-heads that had been thrown out behind the cabin. It was really a wild-looking creature, enormously large, yellowish-gray, and very thick-furred.
“Pussy, pussy! Come here, poor kitty!” she called, coaxingly.
Carl laughed. The cat bristled its tail, growled, and slunk back inch by inch till it was close to the thickets, and then vanished with a leap.
“You could tame a lynx just as quickly,” said Carl. “These cats are wild clear through now.”
“But I believe we could coax them into the house when snow comes, if we were to stay here all winter,” returned Alice. “One of those creatures would be as good as a watch-dog.”
Carl presently set to work again at the bee-fixtures stored in the barn, while Alice resumed her gardening. He found more supplies and a greater quantity of them than he had anticipated. There were no less than two hundred supers for comb-honey, all fitted with section-holders and separators, but with no sections. There were one hundred and five deep supers, the same size as the hives, for producing extracted honey, all full of empty combs for extracting, though many of these had been badly damaged by mice and the bee-moth. In one corner was a great pile of perforated zinc queen-excluders, designed to prevent the queen from reaching the extracting combs and laying eggs in them. Carl rejoiced at this particularly, for these excluders are expensive, and he had been wondering if they would have to buy them. There was also one good smoker and one broken one. There was a four-frame extractor, rusty, but apparently in working condition. There were honey tanks, which only needed cleaning, and there were several hundred brood frames in the flat, which had never been put together. There were also two dozen ten-pound honey-pails, most of which had never been used, and were now too rusted to put honey in; but they would be extremely useful for many household purposes. Alice had been lamenting her scanty stock of tinware, and Carl was gathering these together to carry them up to the house, when he came upon two that were unexpectedly heavy. Opening them, he found them both full of honey that the former owner had somehow overlooked. It was candied as hard as butter, but was white and delicious in flavor, not in the least injured by the winter cold. Carl carried it up to Alice in triumph. It was a great find.
“If the honey we get this summer is as white and good as this, there’ll be no trouble about getting a good price,” he remarked, digging into the pail with a spoon.
Alice finally took it forcibly from him, and sent him back to the barn. He sorted out the different articles, and stored them in neat piles, making a written inventory of the lot. The things that were to be repaired he put aside. Should the season turn out well, they would need more supplies, and certainly they must have about a hundred new hives for the increase they intended to make, as well as for additional supers. But this outfit would give them a good start, and he felt that they had got a bargain after all.
Down at the bottom of the pile he came upon a big fish-net, now rather old, moldy, and torn. Still, he thought it might be mended and made fit for use, and he hung it in the sun. It was not a sportsman’s tool, of course. He had no idea of using it that summer, but if they should want to catch a large quantity of fish for winter salting, it would be just the thing.
Alice, meanwhile, was planting more lettuce, corn, and potatoes on the sunny side of the house. All day they both worked hard, and their fear of the wendigo gradually disappeared. They slept in their own bunks that night, and in the morning they found that the apiary had not been molested.
The willow bloom was almost over now, but the bees were still getting a little honey from the maples. That day Carl and Alice looked over some of the colonies again, and were delighted to find that both the hives that had been raided were getting back into condition again. The queens had survived, and with the strong force of bees that they possessed, these two colonies would quickly recover from their disaster.
A few other colonies were found almost destitute of stores, naturally the best ones, as they had an enormous amount of brood to feed with only a limited supply of honey. Others had honey to spare, and they equalized matters a little, taking frames of honey from the rich ones and giving them to the needy.
That night passed without disturbance, and in the morning a warm, gentle rain was falling. The roof of the cabin developed a leak, and Carl had to clamber up to make repairs. As the rain lasted all day, more leaks appeared hourly, and he was kept busy with his patching. Between times he went fishing in the river just behind the house. The trout bit ravenously, and he landed one fish that must have weighed nearly three pounds.
The next morning it cleared off warm and damp, and the moist heat caused a heavy honey-flow from the maples. The whole wilderness sprang suddenly into intense green. The raspberry bushes were already beginning to show tiny buds, but it would be weeks yet before these would open, and meanwhile the bees would probably need feeding.
Two days later the supplies that Bob had ordered arrived. They consisted chiefly of brood-frames in the flat, several thousand one-pound sections, and a large quantity of comb foundation.
This comb foundation is one of the most necessary things in a modern apiary. It consists of thin sheets of pure beeswax, about the thickness of blotting-paper and stamped with the impression of honey cells. When fixed in a frame or in a section and placed in a hive, the intelligent insects at once recognize its use and lengthen out the stamped indentations into accurate cells. A comb is thus produced very quickly, and with a great economy of honey and wax.
The wooden section-boxes were in the flat, and had to be folded up into squares, pressed firmly together, and a sheet of the thinnest foundation fastened in each with melted wax. This was delicate and tedious work, and kept the two apiarists busy for the next week.
All the lumber had to be made up into new hives, too, and the frames nailed together, filled with foundation, and placed in them. Carl had set up a work-bench in the barn, and he was busy there from morning to night with his carpentering, while Alice worked with the sections, preparing super after super to be placed on the hives whenever the main honey-flow should begin. They had too much to do to think much of either bears or wendigos, but three or four nights later Carl was awakened by a noise in the clearing. He had a confused impression that somebody had called to him. The next instant he heard a rattle of metal, and a sound of something thrashing about. He leaped up and pulled on his trousers.
“Alice!” he called. “Get up. Light the lantern, quick! Something’s in the trap!”
There was a crescent moon, but it gave only a feeble light, and as he rushed out with his shotgun cocked, he could see little. But as he approached the trap, he discerned a great, shapeless figure crouched over it, apparently struggling to get free from the jaws. Thrilling with excitement, Carl stopped, then crept a little nearer and raised his gun. He would have fired in another moment, but just then he caught the sound of a human voice. It was not a wild beast in the trap. It was a man!
The fellow was muttering in some unknown language, and no pleasant words, by the sound of them. Carl ran up, trembling at the narrow escape, and the figure straightened up to human proportions.
“Stand still!” Carl cried. “It’s all right. I’ll get you out.”
He was so shocked at having so narrowly missed shooting a man that it did not occur to him that perhaps he had caught the honey-thief.
“Take off zis trap,” cried the man, with an oath. “He break my leg.”
Alice was lighting the lantern in the cabin. In the darkness Carl could just make out that the fellow was caught by one foot. To open the stiff springs of the trap he would need a lever.
“Wait a minute!” he called, groping about for a stout pole.
He found one, bent over the trap, and then uttered a startled exclamation. The man’s imprisoned foot looked strangely huge and deformed. He struck a match; the man struck it from his hand, but in the momentary flash Carl saw that the fellow was wearing enormous, padded moccasins.
“Oho!” he cried. “So you’re the wendigo!”
It was not a wild beast in the trap: it was a man!
“No understan’,” growled the prisoner. “Open zis trap and let me go.”
Carl hesitated a moment. Then he pried down one of the springs, slipped the ring down to hold it, and released the other spring. The jaws fell apart. The man withdrew his foot, almost toppled over, and then painfully hobbled a few steps.
“I git even! I keel you for zis!” he exclaimed, standing on one leg.
At that moment Alice came hurrying out with the lighted lantern, and the man wheeled and started away at a limping run. Evidently he wished to avoid the light.
“Hold on!” shouted Carl, picking up his gun. “Stop! I want to know who you are. Stop!—or I’ll shoot.”
The thief flung back some savage answer, but kept moving. Carl discharged one barrel of his gun in the air, but it had no effect, for the next moment the man had vanished into the dark woods. Carl did not care. He had only wished to frighten the fellow, and he would not have known what to do with him as a prisoner. The thief surely had had his lesson, and he looked after him with a smile.
“That was your wendigo, Alice,” he said to his sister, who was pale and badly frightened. “Did you notice his feet? He was wearing great stuffed moccasins to imitate a wild beast’s track. I suppose they had nails in the toes for claw-marks. Look here and see the wendigo trail he made.”
Sure enough, here and there on the soft bits of earth they found the same great misshapen trail as before, claw-marks and all. Carl chuckled.
“I’ve heard of the trick before,” he said. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me that it might be a human bear. But I don’t think he’ll try it again.”
“He may do worse, though,” said Alice nervously. “He might set fire to the cabin or the bees—or shoot us.”
But Carl did not think there was any danger of the man attempting any revenge for that night at any rate. He was likely to be too lame and sore, and he had not seemed to carry any weapon; so, after watching for a short time, they went back to bed.
But neither of them slept much in the few hours that remained before daybreak. They were up early and tried to follow the trail of the mock wendigo, but they lost it on the stony road. No hives had been damaged this time; the robber had doubtless been trapped before he had time to rob. And the trap must have bitten hard, for there was blood on the rusty, toothed jaws.
Carl had noticed that the man spoke with a strong foreign accent. The only foreigners in that district were the French half-breeds living near Morton. He had no doubt that the honey-thief had come from that settlement, for these people had no high reputation for strict honesty.
He could hardly think that the fellow would try to steal any more honey from the hives, and he did not believe that he would walk all the long way from Morton merely to seek revenge. He tried to impress Alice with this comforting view; nevertheless he slept lightly for several nights, and kept a loaded rifle close to his bunk.
He was right. The raider did not venture back, and presently the pressure of work drove most other considerations out of their minds. The willow and maple bloom were both over. The bees were getting no honey now, and no colony had honey that could be spared. Feeding had to be resorted to.
They had no regular feeders; this was one thing that the miscellaneous pile in the barn failed to contain. Alice extemporized several, however, by uncovering a hive, setting a tin pan full of sugar syrup directly on top of the frames, and putting the cover over all. In one night the bees would store fifteen or twenty pounds of syrup in their combs, and one such feed was enough to last them till the honey-flow.
Carl incautiously fed his first colony in the daytime and nearly precipitated a riot in the yard. The colony that had been given the syrup rushed out in wild excitement, flying into the air and returning. They knew that sweet was coming in from somewhere, but they did not yet comprehend the source. The bees from adjoining colonies, seeing this excitement, began to rush out likewise; some of them made their way into the feeding hive, finding the entrance unguarded in the commotion, and there was sharp fighting. Fortunately this was a strong colony, well able to defend itself, and the robber bees were routed; but after that Carl was careful to do his feeding after sunset or on a rainy day.
During the day there were still supplies to be got ready for the coming harvest. Another wagon-load of lumber came over from Morton, and soon Carl had an immense stack of new hive-bodies ready for the expected increase. A corresponding number of bottom-boards and covers had to be made as well, so that there was little time now for hunting, fishing, or loafing.
To be sure, almost every day either he or Alice caught a few trout, but this was for food and not for sport, and was done as expeditiously as possible. Often, too, they shot a rabbit or a partridge when it did not involve walking too far. Game was out of season, indeed, but real settlers are exempt from the provisions of the game laws, and Alice became very expert at this sort of foraging.
To his amazement, on coming in to dinner one day, Carl was confronted with an omelette.
“Why, Alice! where did you get the eggs?” he exclaimed.
“I’m ashamed to tell you,” the girl replied. “You see, we had no fresh meat, and I was sick of pork and fish too, and I took the shotgun and walked out down by the river to see if I might see a duck. A partridge flew up almost from under my feet, and perched on a branch. I shot it without thinking; but the next minute it struck me that she must have a nest. I looked, and there it was, with fourteen eggs in it. I almost cried! However, I gathered them up and brought them home, and they were all perfectly good but two.”
It was highly wrong, of course, but the omelette was delicious, and Carl did not reprimand her.
It was now the middle of June, and summer seemed to have come on with a rush. All the trees were in full leaf; the buds on the raspberry canes were swelling, and the bloom might be expected in a week. The days had grown almost hot, and mosquitoes began to appear. Bob wrote that his examinations had commenced, and that he would be able to come up within ten days.
Alice and Carl had pretty well finished their preparations for the honey-flow, and now had a good deal of time on their hands. They fished often, following the river up and down, wishing for a canoe. And they explored the woods in every direction to find the extent of the bee pasturage.
“Why, there must be miles of berries,” Carl said. “There’s no end to them, not to speak of lots of basswood. I don’t see how we can fail to get a hundred pounds of honey per colony.”
Alice’s garden was flourishing too. All the vegetables were up, and she tended them herself. This occupation, with the care of the cabin, took up a good deal of her time, and Carl often went on fishing and exploring expeditions alone. It was on one of these solitary rambles that he met with an adventure that he never could forget and never remembered without a shock of horror.
It was a hot, late June day, and he had walked up the river with his fly-rod, fishing at intervals, but for the most part merely loitering. It was too sunny and hot for the trout to rise well, but there was much of interest to be seen in the stealthy, wild life that swarmed around him. He knew well where a pair of wild ducks had their nest in a marshy spot, and he watched them from a distance. Muskrats could be seen anywhere, and he knew now where to look for the shy mink. At a sandy spot on the shore he found the trail of a deer that had come to drink the night before, and a little farther up he came to the foot of a long rapid.
The banks of the river narrowed greatly here, and the current swept down like a mill-race through the cramped channel studded with sharp, black rocks. The chute was over a hundred feet long, and was a place which only a daring canoe-man would have dared to run. A portage would have been difficult, however, for the shore on both sides and for a long way back was choked with dense cedar thickets, a maze of fallen and standing trunks that was nearly impenetrable.
Carl stopped and cast his flies across the tail of the rapid, where he knew big fish were accustomed to lie. The day was unfavorable, however; after half an hour’s fishing he caught only two rather small trout, and he began to debate whether to return or to go through the jungle. It was hardly worth while to go farther, but at the head of the rapid there was an immense burned slash choked with wild raspberry, and he was anxious to see how the buds were coming on.
So he took his rod apart and plunged into the thickets. It was a slow, struggling business and took him more than half an hour to reach the other side, where the rapid began its tumultuous course.
The raspberry slash was fully a quarter of a mile wide and ran off to an indefinite distance from the river. The canes were growing four feet high and were covered with large buds; here and there a flower was almost open. Carl pushed into the prickly thickets for some distance, and was looking at the prospect of bloom with great delight, when he caught a glimpse of a grayish, furry hide vanishing among the bushes a few rods away.
He jumped upon a fallen log and gazed around. Nothing stirred, but he was sure that he had not been mistaken. There was a strip of open ground, ahead where the unknown animal must show itself if it was coming toward him, and in a few seconds indeed the creature came out from the raspberries into plain sight. It came at a fast, slinking trot, a gray-brown animal about the size of a collie dog, bushy-tailed, carrying its head low.
Carl had never seen a timber-wolf at large, though he had watched them behind iron bars, and he recognized the animal in a moment. He was not particularly frightened, but was very much surprised, for he had not supposed that there were any wolves in that district. Still, he recollected, where deer are plentiful there are almost sure to be wolves, and deer have been increasing very fast in the North of late years. The great Algonquin Park game-preserve affords them a safe breeding-place, and they have spread into all the territory for miles around. Wolves are extremely shy and timid when alone, and Carl stood still and watched it come, in amused expectation of the frantic bolt it would make when it caught sight of him.
But it came on with disconcerting steadiness, though it glanced up, sniffed, and must have seen him. Carl began to feel a slight uneasiness. The beast’s coat looked dull and mangy. There was a curious, jerky motion in its gait, and large flecks of froth on its half-open jaws. As it came nearer, Carl heard a continuous low sound, half snarl and half moan, from its low-hung muzzle.
As if by intuition, Carl realized what was the matter. The animal was mad!
Dimly he remembered now having heard that rabies is terribly prevalent every summer among the timber-wolves, serving, in fact, a useful purpose in keeping down their numbers. The afflicted wolf always leaves the pack and wanders forth alone, spreading its malady, of course, at every chance meeting, till it dies a merciful and solitary death.
Carl had no weapon, not even a knife. It was too late to run, and this would only draw the animal’s pursuit. But a dead cedar stood at his elbow, and with a bound he clutched the trunk, and pulled himself up among the dry, spiky branches.
The movement caught the sick wolf’s attention, and it sprang forward while Carl was still dangling. He kicked out desperately. His boot caught the wolf on the jaw as it leaped after him, and it fell back with a yelp, while Carl tremulously established himself out of reach.
The unfortunate animal made three or four bounds into the air in an aimless fashion, and stared up blinking. Carl expected to be held captive in the tree for a long time, but in a few minutes the wolf seemed to forget him. It raised its muzzle and howled dismally, then loped off into the thickets, heading down the river.
Carl kept his perch in the tree for some minutes after the animal was out of sight. The peculiar horror of this peril, worse than any ordinary form of death, had completely unnerved him. Then, like a flash, it came upon him that the wolf was heading directly for their cabin.
Alice was there alone, perhaps working in her garden or in the bee-yard or at the barn—certainly somewhere out-of-doors. The wolf would come blindly out into the clearing; and in its madness, as he had seen, it had no fear of man.
The imminence of this more appalling danger shocked Carl out of his panic. He slid down from his tree breathlessly and rushed toward the river.
The cedar jungle barred his way. It would take him a long time to get through it, so long that he could hardly hope to reach the clearing first. The fast loping trot of the wolf is deceptive, and Carl knew that the animal was moving almost as swiftly as a man could run. It could slip through the thickets with little trouble, but for himself the delay might be fatal.
He turned to the river. If he had had a canoe he would have risked the rapid without hesitating, for the water-way was the only one past this barrier. He thought of swimming down, but just then his eye fell upon a short, thick, pine log, half stranded and half afloat, close to him.
Without stopping to think of the risk, Carl shoved it into the current, waded after it, and flung himself upon it. It would serve as a float, and the spray was spattering in his face before he realized the full danger.
The pine log shot like a bullet down the boiling current, going too fast to revolve in the water, and missing the boulders by some miraculous good luck. Carl had intended to steer with his legs, but he was half-way down the chute before he had time to make a movement.
In that rush he could only hold his breath and cling hard. His leg struck something; it must have been a rock, but he was only grazed. He plunged through a bank of piled foam with a flurry of white flakes, and he was almost at the tail of the rapid when the log turned and he went under. He let go involuntarily. The log darted away, and for a moment he was choked, battered, and blinded, and then he came up at the foot of the rapid, feeling half-stunned. Several inches of skin were gone from one hand where it had struck a rock, but he had suffered no serious injury, and he regained his feet in about three feet of water and waded ashore.
There was a fairly clear path down the shore, and he began to run, stumbling and dizzy at first, then faster as he warmed to it. He was desperately afraid of overtaking or running upon the wolf, and he kept a sharp lookout as he ran. But he saw nothing of the animal, and began to hope that he had distanced it.
It was a long way, but Carl was a good runner and in fine physical condition. Nevertheless he flagged at last, slowed to a walk, tried to run again, and paused, his heart almost bursting his sides. He was not a quarter of a mile from the clearing, he thought, and he was struggling on at a fast walk, when he heard a moaning howl in the woods, ahead and to the right.
It sent fresh life through him like an electric shock. The sound had seemed to come from the exact direction of the cabin. With a burst of desperate energy he dashed ahead and burst through the willows. At the first glance he saw with a flood of thankfulness that he was not too late.
Alice had a veil on and was doing something at one of the hives between the house and the barn.
“Run, Alice!” Carl yelled, rushing toward her. “Run for the house!”
Alice looked up in surprise and called something back to him, without moving.
“Run!” her brother screamed desperately; and by the energy of his tone Alice grasped that something was seriously wrong. She started to close the hive quickly, and at that moment Carl saw the gray, dog-like form emerging from the willows, half-way between Alice and himself.
The animal snapped at the branches as it went through, and Alice glanced back just then, saw it, cried out, and started to run toward the house. Instantly the wolf threw up its head, caught sight of her, and with a sort of snarling howl, raced after her.
Carl dashed in pursuit, forgetting that he had no weapon. Alice was losing ground. She would be overtaken before she could gain the cabin; but Carl gained a little with his last stock of energy, and when he was forty feet behind he picked up a large stone, aimed, and threw it.
It hit the wolf hard on the flank. The animal stopped and looked back. Carl threw another stone and missed. But the wolf turned and rushed back at its new enemy.
In his turn Carl bolted, with a confused notion of getting into the barn. But the big door stood wide open when he reached it. The place would only be a trap, and he wheeled about just in time to meet the rabid animal’s charge with a vigorous kick that caught it under the jaw and flung it backward.
He remembered the sharp hatchet on his workbench in the barn and rushed into the building to get it; but the wolf was after him like a flash. Carl checked it again with another furious kick, so hard this time that it went almost in a somersault backward. As it tumbled, Carl caught sight of the old fishing-seine that he had found.
It was hanging on a peg at his side. He dragged it down, and as the maddened animal launched itself at him again, he flung the net over it.
It stumbled and rolled, entangled. It scrambled to its feet and once more fell, biting furiously at the meshes. Carl seized the hatchet and circled round, looking for a chance to place a blow, but he was afraid to come too close, and the rotten meshes were tearing under the animal’s struggles.
At that moment Alice suddenly appeared at the barn-door, with Bob’s rifle in her hands.
“Stand aside!” she called, and as Carl leaped away, the rifle cracked.
The wolf leaped into the air, net and all, with a sharp yelp, and fell again, kicking blindly. The rifle banged again and a third time. The wretched animal’s struggles grew feebler, and in a few moments it was dead.
Then, with the strain off, Carl collapsed suddenly on an empty beehive, and everything reeled around him.
“Carl, Carl, what’s the matter?” cried Alice, dropping on her knees beside him. “You’re not hurt, are you? The wolf’s dead. Why, you’re dripping wet!”
Carl recovered himself and reassured her. He gave her a toned-down account of what had happened, but she did not suspect that the animal was rabid, nor did he venture to tell her. He warned her strictly against examining the body and presently he dragged it toward the river, dug a deep hole and buried it, net and all. It was several months before he ventured to tell his sister what a frightful danger they had both escaped; but the experience gave him such a fright that for a long time he never ventured far into the woods without carrying firearms.
Carl felt quite weak and shaky for the rest of that day, and after changing his wet clothes he sat down in the sun, petted by Alice as a semi-invalid. He was quite recovered by the next morning, however, and he went up the river and recovered his rod, which he had dropped in the raspberry slash. Looking at the rapid now, he wondered by what miracle he had come through it alive.
The bees were doing nothing now, but carrying in pollen and water for brood-rearing, and they hung sullen and listless about the hives, very much inclined to be cross. Raspberry bloom was only a few days off; they were all fairly well supplied with food, and there was nothing now to do but let them alone.
Resuming their fishing and exploring rambles, Carl and Alice once followed the river down a little farther than they had ever gone before. About three miles below their cabin they came upon a well-marked trail, and out of curiosity they followed it. They had not gone far when they came to the edge of the woods and they stopped in surprise.
They were on the border of a wide expanse of reeds and marsh-grass bordering the river. Near the woods it was fairly solid and dry, but farther out they could see a great expanse of quagmire, thinly overgrown with small grasses and spotted with pools of oily-looking water. It was a dangerous, unwholesome-seeming place.
“Why, this must be Indian Slough!” said Carl, looking up and down the marsh.
“What’s that?” Alice inquired.
“A historical spot. I thought I had spoken of it. The driver of my wagon told me about it when I was coming out from Morton, but I didn’t think it was so near us.
“The story is that a war-party of Iroquois, during the great Indian raids on Canada in the French days, tried to land somewhere hereabouts, and was swallowed up bodily by this morass. It used to be called Marais aux Iroquois on account of that event, and that has been Englished into Indian Slough.”
“Ugh!” shuddered Alice. “I don’t like it. It looks as if it had swallowed up hundreds of men. Very likely it has, in its time.”
“I’m sure the mosquitos would swallow anybody piecemeal, if he stayed long here,” Carl returned. “Let’s move on.”
The trail led around the edge of the marsh, and they had followed it for scarcely twenty rods farther, when, to their amazement, they came suddenly upon the edge of a clearing.
It was only three or four acres fronting the marsh. It was dotted with stumps, and among them stood a log house and barn much like their own. A few hens scratched about a worn-down haystack. A hog lay stretched in the sun by the barn; and as they came in sight a hound dashed into view and set up a noisy baying.
“Neighbors!” exclaimed Alice. “Who’d have expected it? And why on earth should anybody live in this feverish, mosquitoey, swampy place.”
“Probably that marsh is full of muskrats,” Carl suggested. “The owner here may be a trapper, and likes to live near his work.”
Attracted by the noise of the dog, a couple of ragged children rushed out of the cabin, stared, and then bolted in again like scared rabbits. A woman came to the door, stared also, and stepped outside.
“I’m going up to get acquainted,” said Alice, and she went boldly toward the house.
Her brother followed at a little distance, loitering intentionally to give Alice time to break the ice. The hound came bounding up, wagging his tail and sniffing at the gun Carl carried, and the boy paused to make friends with him. He was patting the brute’s head when a man came around the corner of the house.
He was blinking, and looked as if he had been taking a nap in the sun. Big and strong-framed he was, black-haired, and black-bearded, and his face was almost as dark as an Indian’s. He was roughly clad in a flannel shirt, duffel trousers and moccasins, and he looked surprised, half-hostile, and half-shy.
“Hello, good-morning!” said Carl. “Bon jour!” he added, guessing at the man’s probable nationality; and then, at a second glance, he gasped with surprise. “Why, you—you’re the—”
But the dark-faced squatter, limping heavily on one leg, had turned and dashed out of sight around the house again.
Carl stared after him for a moment and then called to his sister.
“Come, Alice. We must go back.”
Something in his voice startled the girl. She glanced sharply at him and bade her new acquaintance farewell and they started back together across the clearing.
“What’s the matter?” she whispered.
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Keep moving—not too fast.”
He was not really much afraid of being attacked, but he felt much safer when they were in the cover of the woods.
“That’s where the wendigo lives,” he explained at last.
“What! the man you caught in the trap?”
“I’m sure of it. Of course I couldn’t see the fellow’s face plain that night, but this man has a good general resemblance to him, and he walks with a most suspicious limp—in the same leg, too, that the trap caught. Besides, he bolted as soon as he had a look at me. He knew who I was, all right. Yes, I’m certain it’s our honey-thief. What did you find out from the woman?”
“I couldn’t get her to say much, and I couldn’t understand half her dialect. She told me their name—Larue, I think. She said there were lots of ducks and muskrats in the slough, and they didn’t mind the mosquitos. And oh Carl! she had two of the most splendid black bear skins! I’d give anything to have them. The cabin was an awful place—like a pig-sty, but there were two children with the loveliest brown, dirty faces I ever saw.”
“Probably half French and half Ojibway or Chippewa,” said Carl. “Larue certainly sounds French enough. I’m afraid they’re a rough lot, and I’m sorry we have them for our nearest neighbors.”
They reached home in perfect safety, but the incident revived their former feelings of uneasiness. However, this wore away as the days and nights passed without disturbance; and Carl felt relieved to remember that Larue had seemed far more frightened at the encounter than he himself had been.
The weather was growing steadily warmer. Frequent rains brought vegetation forward with the marvelous rapidity of the northern summer. The little, pale, greenish flowers of the raspberry were almost open. And at last one morning Carl came dashing into the cabin with a shout:
“The bees are getting honey!”
Alice hastened out to look. The air was full of flashing wings and a resonant hum. The main honey-flow had started. The crisis of their fortunes was at hand.
