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Speculations about the journey, and in especial about the corduroy road, were rife in the boys' minds during the forty and odd hours which elapsed between the Sunday service and the time of their start.
The travellers met at the settler's cabin early on Tuesday morning, having broken camp shortly after daybreak. On Monday evening Cyrus and Neal, with Uncle Eb, had returned to the bark hut to pack their knapsacks, and make ready for a forward march. On the way thither, it being just the hour for the deer to be running,—that is, descending from the hills for an evening meal,—Neal got a successful shot at a small two-year-old buck. This was a stroke of luck for the campers, and a necessary deed of death. It supplied them with venison for their journey; and, as Cyrus said, "they had already put a shamefully big hole in Dr. Phil's stores, and must procure a respectable supply of meat to make up for it."
It also provided Tiger with plenty of bones to crunch during his master's absence; for the dog was left behind in charge of the hut, as indeed he often was for a week or more while Uncle Eb was away guiding. The sportsmen who engaged the latter's services were generally averse to the creature's presence with the party, lest he should scare their game.
Cyrus and Neal bade him a pathetic farewell, remembering the exciting fun he had given them with the raccoon. Dol sent him lots of approving messages, which were duly delivered, with rough pats and shakes, by Uncle Eb, who fully believed that the brute understood every word of them. Indeed, the sign language of Tiger's expressive tail confirmed this opinion.
Dol had remained at the log camp with his new friends, Dr. Phil thinking it well that he should rest his feet until the morning of the start. His brother promised to bring his knapsack and rifle to the settler's cabin. Uncle Eb repossessed himself of his shot-gun, pouch, and powder-horn, which he carried back to his hut, and left under Tiger's protection, telling Dol that "if he wanted to bag any more black ducks he'd have to give 'em a dose wid de rifle, for he warn't a-goin' to lug dat ole fuzzee t'rough de woods."
It was the perfection of an October morning, sunshiny and pleasant, with a mellow freshness in the air which matched the mellow tints of the forest, when the travellers joined forces at the farm-settlement.
Engaged in the thrilling work of felling a pine-tree to extend his father's clearing, they found the settler's son, a brawny fellow about Cyrus's age, in buckskin leggings and coon-skin cap, who wielded his axe with arms which were tough and knotted as pine limbs. He bawled to them in the forceful language of the backwoods, which to unaccustomed ears sounded a trifle barbaric, to keep out of the way until his tree had fallen.
When the pine at last tumbled earthward with a thud which reverberated for miles through the forest, he gave a mighty yell, waved his skin cap, and came towards the visitors.
"Hulloa, Lin!" boomed the doctor, greeting this native as an old acquaintance.
"Hello, Doc!" answered Lin. "By the great horn spoon! I didn't expect to see you here. Who are these fellers?"
The doctor introduced his comrades. Lin greeted them with bluff simplicity, and called them one and all by their Christian names as soon as these could be found out. Doc alone came in for his short title—if such it could be called. Luckily the campers of both nationalities, from Cyrus downward, were without any element of snobbery in their dispositions. It seemed to them only a jolly part of the untrammelled forest life that man should go back to his primitive relations with his brother man; that in the woods, as Doc said, "manhood should be the only passport," and that titles and distinctions should never be thought of by guides or anybody else. They were well-pleased to be taken simply for what they were,—jolly, companionable fellows,—and to be valued according to the amount of grit and good-temper they showed.
And they learned this morning to appreciate the pioneer courage and resolute spirit of the rugged settlers who had cleared a home for themselves amid the surrounding wilderness of forest and stream. Their roughness of speech was as nothing in comparison with their brave endurance of hardships, their deeds of heroism, and their free-handed hospitality.
Lin led his visitors straight to a log cabin, before which his father, a veteran woodsman, who bore the scars of bears' teeth upon his body, was digging and planting. This old farmer, too, greeted Doc as a friend, and when the wagon was talked about, was quite willing to do anything to serve him.
"But ye must have a square meal afore ye travel," he said. "Jerusha! I couldn't let ye go without eatin'. Mother!" shouting to his wife, who was inside the cabin. "Say, Mother! Ha'n't ye got somethin' fer these fellers to munch?"
Forthwith a big, rosy woman, who had herself fought a bear in her time, and had shot him, too, before he attacked her farmyard, hustled round, and got up such a meal as the travellers had not tasted since they entered the woods. They had a splendid "tuck-in," consisting of fried ham, boiled eggs, potatoes, hot bread, yellow butter, and coffee. And the meal was accompanied with thrilling stories from the lips of the old settler about the hardships and desperate scenes of earlier pioneering days. Doc coaxed him to relate these for the boys' benefit. And many eyes dilated as he told of blood-curdling adventures with the "lunk soos," or "Indian devil," the dreadful catamount or panther, which was once the terror of Maine woodsmen.
"So help me! I'd a heap sooner meet a ragin' lion than a panther," said the old man. "My own father came near to bein' eaten alive by one when I was a kid. He was workin' with a gang o' lumbermen in these forests at timber-makin', and was returnin' to their camp, when the beast bounced out of a thicket all of a suddint. Poor dad was skeered stiff. The thing screeched,—a screech so turrible that it was enough to turn a man's sweat to ice-water, an' a'most set him crazy. Dad hadn't no gun with him; so he shinned up the nighest tree like mad, an' hollered fit to bust his windpipe, hopin' t'other fellers at the camp 'ud hear him.
"But the panther made up another tree hard by, an' sprang 'pon him. Fust it grabbed dad by the heel. Then it tore a big piece out o' the calf of his leg, an' devoured it. Think of it, boys! Them's the sort o' dangers that the fust settlers an' lumbermen in these woods had to face.
"Wal, dad reckoned he was a goner, sure. But he managed to cut a limb from the tree with his huntin'-knife, an' tied the knife to the end of it. With that he fought the beast while his comrades, who had heard his mad yells, were gittin' to him. With the fust shot that one of 'em fired the catamount made off.
"Dad was the sickest man ye ever saw fer a spell. His wound healed after a bit, under the care of an Injun doctor; but his hair, which had been soot-black on that evenin' when he was returnin' to camp, was as white as milk afore he got about again; an' he was notional and narvous-like as long as he lived.
"He said the animal was like a tremenjous big cat, about four feet high an' five or six feet in length. It was a sort o' bluish-gray color. An' it had a very long tail curled up at the end, which it moved like a cat's.
"Boys, that catamount is the only animal that an Indian is skeered of. Ask a red man to hunt a moose, a bear, or a wolf, an' he's ready to follow it through forest an' swamp till he downs it or drops. But ask him to chase a panther, an' he'll shake his head an' say, 'He all one big debil!' He calls the beast, in his own lingo, 'lunk soos,' which means 'Injun devil;' an' so we woodsmen call it too."
It was at this moment that Lin put his head in at the cabin-door, and announced that "the wagon an' hosses war a' ready."
"Wal, boys, I swan! it's many a long year since a panther was seen in these forests, so ye needn't feel skeery about meetin' one," said the old settler, as he stood outside his log home, and watched his guests start. "I'll 'low ye won't find travellin' too easy 'long the ole corduroy road. Come again!"
There was much waving of hats as the wagon, a roomy, four-wheeled vehicle, moved off, with a creaking in its joints as if it were squealing a protest against its load, which consisted of the five lads, together with knapsacks, guns, tents, and the camp duffle.
"Forward, all!" shouted Dr. Phil, who had been chosen to act as captain of the two companies during the few days while they journeyed together.
Lin, who was charioteer, cracked a long whip above his horses. The boys cheered, while Doc, Cyrus, and the two guides fell behind, choosing to follow the wagon on foot for the first few miles of the journey.
"Where did you buy that, Lin?" asked Neal, climbing over to a perch beside the driver, and pointing to a heavy Colt's revolver which the young settler was buckling round his waist.
"Didn't buy it. I traded a calf for it at Greenville more'n a year ago," was the reply. "Fust-rate gun it is, too, I vum! I've stood at our cabin-door, and killed many a buck with it. On'y 'tain't much good for tackling a bear. Wish't the bears ud get as scarce as the panthers! Then we'd be rid o' two master pests. Hello! Don't y'u git to tumbling out jist yet! That's on'y a circumstance to the jolts there'll be when we strike a bit o' corduroy road."
Lin Hathaway grabbed young Farrar by the elbow while he spoke, and held him steady with the horny hand which had swung the axe against the doomed pine-tree. For Neal had shown a sudden inclination to pitch headlong out of the wagon, as its right wheels were hoisted a foot or more above the left ones by rolling over a mossy bump in the ground.
For the first five miles the forest road had been simply constructed thus: First, the bushy undergrowth had been cut away and thrown to one side, the space cleared being about eight feet wide; then all trees growing in the range of this track had been sawn off close to the ground, and windfalls which barred the way were removed. It was a rude highway, with plenty of deformities, such as ends of rotting stumps, twisted roots, ridges and bumps which had never been levelled; yet it was beautiful beyond any smooth, well-graded road which the travellers had ever seen. As it wound along in graceful curves through the woods, it was shaded now by an emerald arch of evergreens, now by a royal crimson canopy of maple branches, while patches of buff, orange, and dull red commingled where other trees interlaced with these to whisper woodland secrets.
But the boys soon understood what Doc meant when he spoke of their having "a bracing ride in more senses than one;" for the motion of the wagon was a giddy series of jolts and bounces, with just sufficient interval between each shock for them to brace themselves, with stiffened backbones, for the next upheaval. They had already begun, as Royal said, "to have kinks in all their limbs," when Lin suddenly announced,—
"Yon's a bit o' corduroy road, I declar'!"
He pointed with his whip ahead, and the travellers shot out their necks to see this novel highway. It extended for about a quarter of a mile over a swamp, and spoke volumes for the energy and ingenuity of the hardy lumbermen who constructed it.
These brawny heroes, who are fine types of American grit and manhood, when clearing a broad track over which their great timber logs could be hauled from the depths of the forest to the landing on some big river, had found the swampy tracts an impassable obstacle for animals trammelled with harness and a heavy load.
They bridged them by laying down logs cut to even lengths in a slightly slanting position across the way for the entire extent of miry ground. Each piece of timber was tightly wedged in by its fellow; nevertheless, there was a space of several inches between their rounded tops. Hence the track presented a striped appearance, which suggested to some spirited genius among woodsmen its name of "corduroy road."
"Well, Neal, do you think you can tell your folks a thing or two about forest travelling when you get back to England?" asked Doc, when the order of march was changed, young Farrar and the Sinclairs turning out to do their share of tramping, while the doctor, Cyrus, and the guides benefited by "a lift."
"I rather think I can," answered Neal; "but goodness! I feel as if there were aches and bruises all over me. Once or twice my head seemed jumping straight off my shoulders. No more going in a wagon over corduroy roads for me! I'd rather be leg-weary any day."
The travellers halted that evening about five o'clock on the banks of a lonely stream. The guides pitched the two tents—Joe had provided one for his party—facing each other on a patch of clearing, with a space of about fifteen feet between them, in the centre of which blazed a roaring camp-fire. Now all the axes and knifes among the band were in demand for cutting and sharpening stakes and ridge-poles on which to stretch their canvas.
Moreover, no evergreen boughs could be procured for beds; and the boys had to work with a will, helping Uncle Eb and Joe to cut bundles of the long, rank grass that grew by the water to form a bed for their tired bodies.
Every one was camp-hungry, as they had not halted for a meal since leaving the settlement. After a splendid supper of venison, broiled over sizzling logs, bread, and fried potatoes,—for they had added to their stores at the farm,—they had a glorious social hour by the camp-fire. Joe got off any amount of "ripping" stories; and the sound of many a jolly chorus, led by Cyrus, and swelled by the musical efforts of the entire crew, mingled with the lonely rustle of the night wind among faded and drifting leaves.
When Doc's summons came to turn in, they stretched themselves upon the grassy beds, not undressing, as the night was chilly and the temporary quarters were not so snug as their previous ones. Still in their warm jerseys, trousers, woollen stockings, and knitted caps, with the heat from the piled-up camp-fire streaming under the raised flaps of the tents, they slept as cosily as if they lay on spring mattresses, surrounded by pictured walls.