The Young Alaskans on the Trail - Emerson Hough (best free novels TXT) 📗

off the trail.”

“No danger anyhow,” said Rob. “We’ve often followed a trail that way.”

Indeed, the young hunters proved themselves quite good woodsmen enough to follow Alex down the mountain face into the thicket of the plateau. He went almost at a trot, loaded as he was, and as the boys found the big ram’s head a heavy load for them to carry between them on the stick, they met him as he was coming back up the mountains, when they themselves were not a great deal more than half-way down to the place where he had dropped his pack.

“It’s all plain,” said Alex, “for I followed our old trail down the hill, and put a branch across two or three places so that you’ll know when you’re near the pack.”

They found no difficulty in obeying his instructions, and so tired were they that it seemed but a short time before presently Alex joined them for a second time, carrying the remainder of the meat on his tump-strap.

“Now,” said he, “we’re a great deal more than half-way down to the boats. We won’t come back for the second trip at all now, and we’ll take our time with the loads. I’ll send Moise up for one pack, which we will leave here.”

“Suppose he doesn’t want to come?” asked John.

“Oh, Moise will be glad to come. He’s a good packer and a cheerful man. Besides, I suppose that would be his business as we look at it among our people. In the old times, when Sir Alexander came through, a hunter did nothing but hunt. If he killed a head of game the people around the post had to go out and get it for themselves if they wanted it brought in.”

“But how will Moise find this place?” asked John, anxiously. “I don’t want to lose this head, I’ll tell you that.”

Alex laughed. “He’ll come right to the place! I’ll explain to him, so he’ll know right where it is.”

“Although he has never been here before?”

“Surely; one Injun can tell another how to go to a place. Besides, our trail will be as plain as a board-walk to him. He’s used to that kind of work, you see.”

All of this came out quite as Alex had said. They took their time in finishing their journey, but it was long before noon when they arrived at the boat encampment on the banks of the river, where they were greeted with great joy by Jesse and Moise. Then, although it was not yet time for lunch, Moise insisted on cooking once more, a plan to which John gave very hearty assent, and in which all the others joined.

After a while Alex and Moise, each smoking contentedly, began to converse in their own tongue, Alex sometimes making a gesture toward the mountains off to the east, and Moise nodding a quiet assent. After a time, without saying anything, Moise got up, tightened his belt, filled his pipe once more, and departed into the bush.

“Are you sure he’ll find that meat?” demanded John, “and bring down that bighorn head?”

“He certainly will,” said Alex; “he’ll run that trail like a dog, and just about as fast. Moise used to be a good man, though he says now he can’t carry over two hundred pounds without getting tired.”

“Well, listen at that!” said Jesse. “Two hundred pounds! I shouldn’t think anybody could carry that.”

“Men have carried as much as six hundred pounds for a little way,” said Alex. “On the old portage trails two packets, each of ninety pounds, was the regular load, and some men would take three. That was two hundred and seventy pounds at least; and they would go on a trot. You see, a country produces its own men, my young friends.”

“Well, that’s the fun of a trip like this,” said Rob. “That, and following out the trails of the old fellows who first came through here.”

“Now,” continued Alex, getting up and looking about the camp, “we have meat in camp, and fish also. I think perhaps we’d better dry a part of our sheep meat, as we used to the meat of the buffalo in the old days. We’ll smoke it a little, cutting it thin and spreading it in the sun. By keeping the fresh meat under boughs so the flies won’t get at it, it’ll stay good for quite a little while too. We don’t want to waste anything, of course.”

They were busy about their odd jobs in the camp when, long before they would have expected it, Moise came trotting down the base of the timbered ridge above the camp, and, still smoking and still smiling, tossed down the big bundle of meat and the other sheep-head on the ground beside the fire.

“By gosh! Those will be fine head!” said he. “If I’ll had this head in Winnipeg I’ll got hondred dollars for each one, me, maybe so. Now I’ll show you how for cook some sheep to-night after supper.”

“You mean at supper, don’t you?” asked Rob.

“Non! Non! We’ll eat supper, wait a while, then those sheep meat he’ll look good some more. I’ll show you.”

“Are you going to tell us another story to-night?” asked Jesse, eagerly.

“Yes, after supper I’ll tol’ you some more story,” assented Moise. “We stay here maybe two, three day now, so to-morrow I think we’ll be in camp. All right. To-night we’ll tell the story some more.”

X HOW THE SPLIT-STONE LAKE WAS NAMED

As Moise was even hungrier than John, there seemed no objection to eating another meal even before sundown. The evening came off fair and cool, so that the mosquitoes did not bother the campers. As the chill of the mountain night came on, the boys put on their blanket coats and pulled the bed-rolls close up to the fire, near which the men both sat smoking quietly. Already the boys were beginning to learn reticence in camp with men like these, and not to interrupt with too many questions; but at length Jesse’s eagerness to hear Moise’s story could no longer be restrained.

“You promised to tell us something to-night, Moise,” said he. “What’s it going to be?”

“First I’ll must got ready for story,” said Moise. “In the camp my people eat when they tell story. I’ll fix some of those sheep meat now.”

Borrowing his big knife from Alex, Moise now cut himself a sharp-pointed stick of wood, two or three feet long, and stuck one end of this into each end of the side of sheep ribs which lay at the meat pile. Finding a thong, he tied it to the middle of the stick, and making himself a tall tripod for a support, he suspended the piece of meat directly over the fire at some distance above, so that it could not burn, but would revolve and cook slowly.

“Suppose in a half-hour I’ll can tell story now,” said Moise, laughing pleasantly. “No use how much sheep meat you eat, always you eat more!”

At last, however, at what must have been nine or ten o’clock at night, at least, perhaps later, after Moise had cut for each of the boys a smoking hot rib of the delicious mountain mutton, he sat back, a rib-bone in his own hand, and kept his promise about the story.

“I’ll tol’ you last night, young mens,” he said, “how about those Wiesacajac, the spirit that goes aroun’ in the woods. Now in the fur country east of the mountains is a lake where a rock is on the shore, split in two piece, an’ the people call that the Split-Stone Lake. Listen, I speak. I tell now how the lake he’s got that name.

“Wiesacajac, he’ll make hont sometime in that country, an’ he’ll come on a camp where all the men are out honting. Only two peoples is left in camp, same like you leave us two peoples here when you go hont. But these two peoples is little, one boy, one girl. The mens an’ womens all go hont in the woods and there is no meat in camp at all. The children were not old for hont or for feesh. Their papa an’ their mamma say, ‘Stay here.’ So they stay an’ wait. They have wait many days. Pretty soon now they’ll gone dead for starve so long.

“Now Wiesacajac, he’ll come an’ stan’ by the fire, an’ see those little peoples. ‘Oh, Wiesacajac,’ they’ll say, ‘we’re ver’ hongree. We have not eat for many days. We do not think our peoples will come back no more. We’ll not know what for do.’

“Now, Wiesacajac, he’ll been always kin’. ‘Oh, now, my childrens,’ he’ll say, ‘this is bad news what you give me, ver’ bad indeed. You’ll make me cry on you, I’ll been so sorry for you. You’re on this lake where the win’ comes, an’ the country is bare, an’ there is no game.’

“He’ll look aroun’ an’ see nothing in those camp but one piece of swanskin, ol’ dry swanskin, all eat clean of meat. Then he’ll look out on the lake, an’ he’ll see a large flock of swans stay there where no man can come. Those swan will know the children was hongree, but they’ll not like for get killed theirselves.

“Wiesacajac he’ll say, ‘My children, why do you starve when there’s meat there in front of you?’

“Those was child of a honter. ‘Yes,’ said those boy, ‘what use is that meat to us? It’s daylight. You know ver’ well you’ll not can come up to the swans.’

“‘Ah, ha! Was that so?’ said Wiesacajac. ‘Let me show you somethings, then.’

“So Wiesacajac, he’ll take those ol’ swanskin an’ put it on hees head. Then he’ll walk down in the lake an’ sink down till just the head and breast of those swanskin will show on the water. Wiesacajac, he’ll be good honter, too. He’ll sweem aroun’ in the lake foolish, but all tam he’ll come closer to those swan, an’ closer. Those swan she’ll be wise bird, an’ they’ll saw heem an’ they’ll say, ‘There’s one of us that we’ll not miss—what’ll he doing out there?’

“Then they begin to sweem toward Wiesacajac, an’ Wiesacajac begin to sweem toward them. Bimeby he’ll been right among ’em. Then these two hongree boy an’ girl on the camp they’ll holler out to each other, for they’ll see one swan after another flap his wing an’ jump for a fly, but then fall back on water, for he’ll can’t fly at all.

“Wiesacajac, he’ll have some babiche—some hide string, aroun’ hees waist, an’ he’ll took it now an’ tie the feet of all those swan together, so all they’ll can do is to flap hees wing an’ scream an’ blow their horn like the swan do. At last he’ll got them all tied fast—the whole flock. But he’ll can’t hold so many swan down on the water. Those swan will all begin to trumpet an’ fly off together, an’ they’ll carry Wiesacajac with them. Now he’ll let them fly until they come right near where those two hongree boy an’ girl is sit, an’ going for starve. Then he’ll drop down an’ tie the end of hees babiche to a strong bush. Voila! Those whole flock of swan is tie’ fast to camp. None but Wiesacajac can do this thing.

“‘Now my childrens,’ say Wiesacajac, kin’ly, to those boy an’ girl, ‘you see, there’s plenty of meat in your camp. Go now, cook an’ eat.’

“So now those children go an’ keel a swan an’ skin it, an’ get it ready for cook. By this time Wiesacajac he’ll done make the fire. He’ll not want to set woods on fire, so he’ll build it by those big rocks which always stood by that lake. Here