Chapter XIV - A Lucky Hunter

Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have disgraced a squad of Indians, "Company Three," as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the crowning-point of their journey, the log camp on the shore of Millinokett Lake.

During the first half-dozen miles of the way, though each one manfully did his best to be lively, a sense of loss made their fun flat and pointless. Royal's tear-away tongue, his brothers' racket, Joe's racy talk, Uncle Eb's kind, dark face, and more than all, Doc's companionship, which was as tonic to the hearts of those who travelled with him, were missed.

But spirits must be elastic in forest air. When they halted at noon to eat their "snack" on the side of a breezy knoll, with a tiny brook purling through a pine grove beneath them, with Katahdin's rugged sides and cloud-veiled peaks looming in majesty to the north, the thought of what lay behind was inevitably lost in what lay before. Enthusiasm replaced depression.

"It's no use grizzling because we can't have those fellows with us all the time," remarked Neal philosophically. "'Twas a big piece of luck our running against them at all. And I've a sort of feeling that this won't be the end of it; we'll come across them again some day or other."

"And at all events we'll probably get a sight of Doc at Greenville as we go back," said Dol, to whom this was no small comfort.

"Well, needless to say, I'd have been glad of their company for the rest of the trip. But still, if they had taken a notion to come on with us, it would have reduced to nothing our chances of seeing a moose. We're a big party already for moose-calling or stalking—three of us, with Herb;" this from Cyrus.

"Now, fellows, don't you think we'd better get a move on us?" added the leader. "We've half a dozen miles to do yet; but the trail begins right here, and is clearly blazed all the way to our camp. Let's keep a stiff upper lip, and the journey will soon be over."

It was very delightful to sit there in the crisp October air, with the brook seemingly humming tender legends of the woods, which witless men could not translate, with an uncertain breeze playing through the newly fallen maple-leaves, now turning them one by one in lazy curiosity, then of a sudden making them caper and swirl in a scarlet merry-go-round. Still, the young Farrars were not loath to move on. Now that they were nearing the climax of their journey, their minds were full of Herb Heal. Their longing to meet this lucky hunter grew with each mile which drew them nearer to him.

They pressed hard after their leader, looking neither right nor left, while he carefully followed the trail; and one hour's tramping brought them to the shores of Millinokett Lake.

Here, despite their eagerness to reach their new camp, they were forced to stop and admire the great sheet of forest-bound water, smiling back the sky in tints of turquoise and pearl, dotted with apparently countless islets, like specks upon the face of a mirror.

The irregular shores of the lake were broken by "logons," narrow little bays curving into the land, shining arms of water, sometimes bordered by evergreens, sometimes by graceful poplars and birches. From the opposite bank the woods stretched away in undulating waves of ridge and valley to the foot of Mount Katahdin, which still showed grandly to the northward.

"Millinokett Lake," said Cyrus, prolonging the syllables with a soft, liquid sound. "It's an Indian name, boys; it signifies 'Lake of Islands.' Whatever else the red men can boast of, the music of their names is unequalled. I don't know exactly how many of those islets there are, but I believe Millinokett has over two hundred of them anyhow. Our camp is on the western shore. Shall we be moving?"

After skirting the water for another mile or two, the travellers reached a broad, open tract, bare of timber. At the farther end of this clearing were two log cabins, low, but very roomy, situated at a distance of a few hundred yards from the lake, with a background of splendid firs and spruces, the lively green of the latter making the former look black in contrast.

"Is that our camp? How perfectly glorious!" boomed Neal and Dol together.

"It's our camp, sure enough," answered Garst, with no less enthusiasm. "At least the first cabin will be ours. I don't know whether there are any hunters in the other one just now."

The log shanties had been put up by an enterprising settler to accommodate sportsmen who might penetrate to this far part of the wilds in search of moose or caribou. Cyrus had arranged for the use of one during the months of October and November. Here it was that Herb Heal had engaged to await him. And as he had commissioned this famous guide to stock the camp with all such provisions as could be procured from neighboring settlements, such as flour, potatoes, pork, etc., he expected to slide into the lap of luxury.

In one sense he did. When the trio, their hearts thumping with anticipation, reached the low door of the first cabin, they found it securely fastened on the outside, so that no burglar-beast could force an entrance, but easily opened by man. Cyrus hurriedly undid the bolts, and stepped under the log roof, followed by his comrades. The camp was in beautiful order, clean, well-stocked, and provided with primitive comforts. An enticing-looking bed of fresh fir-boughs was arranged in a sort of rude bunk which extended along one side of the cabin, having a head-board and foot-board. The latter was fitted to form a bench as well. A man might perch on it, and stretch his toes to the fire in the great stone fireplace only two feet distant.

The boys could well imagine that this would make an ideal seat for a hunter at night, where he might lazily fill his pipe and tell big yarns, while the winter storm howled outside, and snow-flurries drifted against his log walls. But they looked at it wistfully now, for it was empty. There was no figure of a moccasined forest hero on bench or in bunk. There was no Herb Heal.

"Bless the fellow! Where on earth is he?" Garst exclaimed. "He's been here, you see, and has the camp provisioned and ready. Perhaps he's only prowling about in the woods near. I'll give him a 'Coo-hoo!'"

"Herb Heal."

He stepped forth from the cabin to the middle of the clearing, and sent his voice ringing out in a distance-piercing hail. He loaded his rifle and blazed away with it, firing a volley of signal-shots.

Neither shout nor shots brought him any answer.

The second cabin was likewise empty, and, judging from the withered remains of a bed, had evidently been long unused.

"Well, fellows!" said the leader, with manifest chagrin, "we'll only have to fix up something to eat, make ourselves comfortable, and wait patiently until our guide puts in an appearance. Herb Heal never broke an engagement yet. He's as faithful a fellow as ever made camp or spotted a trail in these forests. And he promised to wait for me here from the first of October, as it was uncertain when I might arrive. I'm mighty hungry. Who'll go and fetch some water from the lake while I turn cook?"

Dol volunteered for this business, and brought a kettle from the cabin. He found it near the hearth, on which a fire still flickered, side by side with a frying-pan and various articles of tinware. Cyrus rolled up his sleeves, took the canisters of tea and coffee with other small stores from his knapsack, proceeded to mix a batter for flapjacks, and showed himself to be a genius with the pan.

The meal was soon ready. The food might be a little salt and greasy; but camp-hunger, after a tramp of a dozen miles, is not dulled by such trifles. The trio ate joyously, washing the fare down with big draughts of tea, rather fussily prepared by Neal, which might have "done credit to many a Boston woman's afternoon tea-table"—so young Garst said.

Yet from time to time longing looks were cast at the low camp-door. And when daylight waned, when stars began to glint in a sky which was a mixture of soft grays and downy whites like a dove's plumage, when the islets on Millinokett's bosom became black dots on a slate-gray sheet, and no laden hunter with rifle and game put in an appearance, even Cyrus became fidgety and anxious.

"I hope the fellow hasn't come to grief somewhere in the woods," he said, while a shiver of apprehension shot down his back. "But Herb has had so many hairbreadth escapes that I believe the animal has yet to be born which could get the better of him. And he can find his way anywhere without a compass. Every handful of moss on a trunk or stone, every turn of a woodland stream, every sun-ray which strikes him through the trees, every glimpse of the stars at night, has a meaning for him. He reads the forest like a book. No fear of his getting lost anyhow. Come, boys, I guess we'd better build up our fire, make things snug for the night, and turn in."

Rather dejectedly the trio set about these preparations. In twenty minutes' time they were stretched side by side in the wide bunk, with their blankets cuddled round them, already venting random snores.

"Hello! So you've got here at last, have you?"

The exclamations were loud and snappy, and awoke the sleeping campers like the banging of rifle-shots. With jumping pulses they sprang up, feeling a wave of cold air sweep their faces; for the cabin-door, which they had closed ere lying down, was now ajar.

The camp was almost in darkness. Only one dull, red ray stole out from the fire, on which fresh logs had been piled. But while the young Farrars rubbed their sleep-dimmed eyes, and slowly realized that the woodsman whom they had been expecting had at last arrived, a strangely brilliant illumination lit up the log walls.

This sudden and bewildering light showed them the figure of a hunter in mud-spattered gray trousers, with coarse woollen stockings of lighter hue drawn over them above his buckskin moccasins. His battered felt hat was pushed back from his forehead, a guide's leathern wallet was slung round him, and the rough, clinging jersey he wore, being stretched so tightly over his swelling muscles that its yarn could not hold together, had a rent on one shoulder.

His slate-gray eyes with jetty pupils, which were miniatures of Millinokett Lake at this hour, gazed at the awakened trio in the bunk, with a gleam of light shooting athwart them, like a moonbeam crossing the face of the lake.

The hunter held in his hand a big roll of the inflammable paper-like bark of the white birch-tree, which he had brought in with him to kindle his fire, expecting that it had gone out during his absence. Seeing a glow still on the hearth, and feeling instantly that the cabin was tenanted, he had applied a match to his bark, causing the vivid flare which revealed him to the eyes of those who had longed for his presence.

"Herb Heal, man, is it you?" shouted Cyrus, his voice like a midnight joy-chime, as he sprang from the fir-boughs and gripped the woodsman's arm. "I'm delighted to see you, though I was ready to swear you wouldn't disappoint us! I didn't fasten the cabin-door, for I thought you might possibly get back to camp during the night."

"Cyrus, old fellow, how goes it?" was Herb's greeting. "I had a'most given up looking for you. But I'm powerful glad you've got here at last."

The hunter's voice had still the quick snap and force which made it startling as a rifleshot when he entered the cabin.

"These are my friends, Neal and Adolphus Farrar," said Cyrus, introducing the blanketed youths, who had now risen to their feet. "Boys, this is Herb Heal, our new guide, christened Herbert Healy—isn't that so, Herb?"

"I reckon it is;" answered the young hunter, laughing. "But no woodsman could spring a sugary, city-sounding name like that on me. I've been Herb Heal from the day I could handle a rifle."

He nodded pleasantly as he spoke to the strange lads, and began to chat with them in prompt familiarity, looking straight and strong as a young pine-tree in the halo of his birch torch. Garst, whose inches his juniors had hitherto coveted, was but a stripling beside Herb Heal.

"Is this your first trip into Maine woods, younkers?" he asked. "Well, I guess you've come to the right place for sport. I'm sorry I wasn't on hand to welcome you when you arrived. A pretty forest guide you must have thought me. But I guess I'll show you a sight to-morrow that'll wipe out all scores."

There was such triumph in the hunter's eye that the voices of the trio blended into one as they breathlessly asked,—

"What sight is it?"

"A dead king o' the woods, boys," answered Herb Heal, his voice vibrating. "A fine young bull-moose, as sure as this is a land of liberty. I dropped him by a logon on the east bank of Fir Pond, about four miles from here. I started out early, hoping to nab a deer; for I had no fresh meat left, and I didn't want to have a bare larder when you fellows came along. But the woods were awful still. There didn't seem to be anything bigger than a field-mouse travelling. Then all of a sudden I heard a tormented grunting, and the moose came tearing right onto me. I was to leeward of him, so he couldn't get my scent. A man's gun doesn't take long to fly into position at such times, and I dropped him with two shots. There he lies now by the water, for I couldn't get him back to camp till morning. He's not full-grown; but he's a fine fellow for all that, and has a dandy pair of antlers. By George! I'd give the biggest guide's fees I ever got if you fellows had been there to hear him striking the trees with 'em as he tore along. He was a buster.

"But you'll see him to-morrow anyhow, and have a taste of moose-meat for the first time in your lives, I guess."

Here Herb waved the fag-end of his bark roll, threw it down as it scorched his horny fingers, and stamped upon it.

The interior of the log cabin, ere it was extinguished, was a scene for a painter,—the lithe, muscular figure, tanned face, and gleaming eyes of the lucky hunter shown by the flare of his birch torch, and the three staring listeners, with blankets draped about them, who feared to miss one point of his story.

Cyrus was grinding his teeth in vexation that he had narrowly missed seeing the moose alive. The two Farrars were burning with excitement at the thought of beholding the monarch of the forest at all, even in death. For they had heard enough wood-lore to know that the bull-moose, with his extreme caution, is like a tantalizing phantom to hunters. Continually he lures them to disappointment by his uncouth noises, or by a sight of his freshly made tracks, while his sensitive ears and super-sensitive nose, which can discriminate between the smell of man and every other smell on earth, will generally lead him off like a wind-gust before man gets a sight of him.

"I'm sorry to keep you awake, boys," said Herb Heal, making for the fire, after he had finished his story; "but I haven't had a bite since morning, and I'm that hungry I could chaw my moccasins. I'll get something to eat, and then we'll turn in. We'll have mighty hard work to-morrow, getting the moose to camp."

Herb was not long in making ready the stereotyped camp-fare of flapjacks and pork. To light his preparations, he took a candle out of a precious bundle which he had brought from a town a hundred miles distant, and set it in a primitive candlestick. This was simply a long stick of white spruce wood, one end of which was pointed, and stuck into the ground; the other was split, and into it the candle was inserted, the elasticity of the fresh wood keeping the light in place.

The tired hunter did not dawdle over his supper. In a quarter of an hour he had finished it, and was building up the fire again. Then he stretched himself beside the trio in the rude bunk, drawing one thin blanket over him. Neal, who lay on his right, was conscious of some prickings of excitement at having such a bedfellow on the fir-boughs,—the camper's couch which levels all. There flashed upon the fair-haired English boy a remembrance of how Cyrus had once said that "in the woods manhood is the only passport." He thought that, measured by this standard, Herb Heal had truly a royal charter, and might be a president of the forest land; for he looked as free, strong, and unconquerable as the forest wind.