style="font-size:15px;"> “Most willingly, my good friend,” replied the artist, rising and holding out his hand, which the trapper shook heartily. “You seem to be trappers.”
“We are, sir, at your service. It’s gettin’ late and we’ve a good bit to go yet, before we come to the place where we mean to camp, so you’d better come at once.”
“Certainly; by all means; let us embark without delay,” replied the artist, pocketing his sketch-book.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Redhand, with some hesitation, “are you alone?”
“I am,” replied the other sadly; then, as if a sudden thought had struck him—“I had two pistols and a cloak once.”
“We’ve picked ’em up, sir. They’re in the canoe now. At least the pistols are, an’ what’s left o’ the cloak.”
“Ha! ’twas an old and cherished friend! Are you ready?”
“All ready, sir.”
So saying, the old man led the way to the canoe and embarked with his strange companion. Then, pushing out into the stream just as the shades of night began to descend upon the wilderness, the trappers paddled swiftly away, wondering in their hearts who and what the stranger could be, and talking occasionally in subdued tones of the chief incidents of the exciting combat through which they had so recently passed.
Chapter Five
There is no doubt whatever that a western trapper knows how to make a fire. That is an axiomatic certainty. He also knows how to enjoy it. He is thoroughly conversant with it in all its phases, and with all the phenomena connected with it, from the bright little spark that flies from his flint and steel, and nestles on his piece of tinder, to the great rolling flame that leaps up among the branches of the forest trees, roaring lustily as it goes out upon the night air, like a mighty spirit set free from some diminutive prison house, rejoicing in being once more permitted to reassume its original grand dimensions.
Yes, a western trapper has a grand, massive notion of a fire, and his actions are all in keeping with that notion. Almost everything is small at the fountain. A mighty river usually begins in a bubbling spring or a tiny rivulet. So the trapper’s initial acts are delicate. He handles the tinder gently, and guards it from damp. He fosters the spark, when caught, and blows upon it softly, and wraps it up in dry grass, and watches it intently as a mother might watch the life-spark of her new-born babe. But when once the flame has caught, and the bundle of little dry twigs has been placed above it, and the pile of broken sticks has been superadded, the trapper’s character is changed. He grasps the ponderous hatchet, and, Homerically speaking—
“Now toils the hero: trees on trees o’erthrown,
Fall crackling round him, and the forests groan.”
These, “lopp’d and lighten’d of their branchy load,” he assaults singly. Heaving the huge axe with lusty sweeping blows, he brings it down. Great wedgy splinters fly and strew the plain like autumn leaves. Then, with massive logs, full six feet long, he feeds the hungry fire until it leaps and roars in might, and glows full red and hot and huge enough to roast him a bison bull for supper, an he should feel so disposed.
Descending now from the abstract to the concrete, we would remark that, whether the reader does or does not admit the general proposition, that western trappers are pre-eminently up to fire (not to mention smoke or snuff), he cannot deny the fact that Big Waller, the Yankee trapper, was peculiarly gifted in that way. On the evening of the day on which occurred the memorable encounter with the grisly bear, as related in the last chapter, that stalwart individual heaved his ponderous axe and felled the trees around him in a way that would have paled the ineffectual fires of Ulysses himself, and would probably have induced that hero not only to cease cutting trees, but to commence cutting his stick thenceforth from the field of competition! March Marston meanwhile kindled the spark and nursed the infant flame. The others busied themselves in the various occupations of the camp. Some cut down pine-branches, and strewed them a foot deep in front of the fire, and trod them down until a soft elastic couch was formed on which to spread their blankets. Others cut steaks of venison and portions of the grisly bear, and set them up on the end of sticks before the fire to roast, and others made fast and secured the canoe and her lading.
The artist, seating himself beside the fire, just near enough to profit by the light, but far enough away to obtain a general view of everything and everybody, proceeded with enthusiasm to sketch the whole affair, collectively and in detail. He devoted his chief attention, however, to Big Waller. He “caught” that gigantic Yankee in every conceivable action and attitude. He photographed him, we might almost say, with his legs apart, the hatchet high above his head, and every muscle tense and rigid, preliminary to a sweeping blow. He “took” him with a monstrous pile of logs on his brawny shoulder; he portrayed him resting for a moment in the midst of his toil; he even attempted to delineate him tumbling over one of the logs, and hurling a shoulder-load upon the ground; but he failed utterly in the last attempt, being quite destitute of comical perception, and he did not finally conclude until Gibault went forward and informed him that supper was ready. Then he shut up his book, and, taking his place beside the trappers, began supper.
“This is comfortable—this is pleasant!” remarked the artist, as he sat down before the warm blaze, and applied himself with infinite relish to the venison steak placed before him by Bounce. “You live well here, it would seem.”
This latter remark was addressed to Hawkswing, who sat close beside him; but that imperturbable worthy shook his head gravely.
“He don’t understand ye,” interposed Bounce, “knows, nothin’ but his own mother tongue. We do live pretty middlin’ so so hereabouts when we ain’t starvin’, w’ich it isn’t for me to deny is sometimes the case, d’ye see.”
Bounce stopped his own talk at this point by stuffing his mouth so full of meat that no word, not even a word of one syllable, could have forced itself out, had it tried ever so much. A long silence now ensued, during which the clack of seven pairs of active jaws was the only sound that broke upon the ear. It might have been observed, however, that all eyes were fixed more or less wonderingly on the stranger. Big Waller in particular looked him, figuratively speaking, through and through. He did not remove his eyes off him for an instant, but devoured his food with somewhat the expression of a dog that expects his bone to be snatched from him.
“Try a duck,” said March Marston to the artist, observing that he had finished his steak.
“Thank you,” answered the artist, accepting the proffered bird, which happened to be a teal, and beginning to carve it with a pen-knife. He had no fork, but used the fingers of his left hand instead.
Silence again ensued.
“Try another,” said March again.
The artist hesitated.
“You’d better; it’s a fat un.”
“N–no. No!” said the artist, shutting up his knife with an air of decision. “No, thank you, I always advocate moderation, and it would ill become me to set an example of glut—ah, of the reverse.”
“Wal, stranger,” said Waller, who, having finished eating, wiped his mouth with a tuft of grass, and began to fill his pipe. “You do come out in the way o’ moderation rather powerful. Why a teal duck an’ a ven’son steak is barely enough to stop a feller
