Away in the Wilderness. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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in the water? Deer, I do believe,” cried Jasper, quickly drawing the small shot from his gun and putting in a ball instead. “Come, lads, we shall have venison for supper to-night. That beast can’t reach t’other side so soon as we can.”
Jasper leaped quickly down the hill, and dashed through the bushes towards the spot where their canoe lay. He was closely followed by his companions, and in less than two minutes they were darting across the lake in their little Indian canoe, which was made of birch-bark, and was so light that one man could carry it easily.
While they are thus engaged I will introduce the reader to John Heywood. This individual was a youth of nineteen or twenty years of age, who was by profession a painter of landscapes and animals. He was tall and slender in person, with straight black hair, a pale haggard-looking face, an excitable nervous manner, and an enthusiastic temperament. Being adventurous in his disposition, he had left his father’s home in Canada, and entreated his friend, Jasper Derry, to take him along with him into the wilderness. At first Jasper was very unwilling to agree to this request; because the young artist was utterly ignorant of everything connected with a life in the woods, and he could neither use a paddle nor a gun. But Heywood’s father had done him some service at a time when he was ill and in difficulties, so, as the youth was very anxious to go, he resolved to repay this good turn of the father by doing a kindness to the son.
Heywood turned out but a poor backwoodsman, but he proved to be a pleasant, amusing companion, and as Jasper and the Indian were quite sufficient for the management of the light canoe, and the good gun of the former was more than sufficient to feed the party, it mattered nothing to Jasper that Heywood spent most of his time seated in the middle of the canoe, sketching the scenery as they went along. Still less did it matter that Heywood missed everything he fired at, whether it was close at hand or far away.
At first Jasper was disposed to look upon his young companion as a poor useless creature; and the Indian regarded him with undisguised contempt. But after they had been some time in his company, the opinions of these two men of the woods changed; for they found that the artist was wise, and well informed on many subjects of which they were extremely ignorant; and they beheld with deep admiration the beautiful and life-like drawings and paintings which he produced in rapid succession.
Such was the romantic youth who had, for the sake of seeing and painting the wilderness, joined himself to these rough sons of the forest, and who now sat in the centre of the canoe swaying his arms about and shouting with excitement as they quickly drew near to the swimming herd of deer.
“Keep yourself still,” said Jasper, looking over his shoulder, “ye’ll upset the canoe if ye go on like that.”
“Give me the axe, give me the axe, I’ll kill him!” cried Heywood.
“Take your pencil and draw him,” observed the hunter, with a quiet laugh. “Now, Arrowhead, two good strokes of the paddle will do—there—so.”
As he spoke the canoe glanced up alongside of an affrighted deer, and in the twinkling of an eye Jasper’s long knife was in its heart, and the water was dyed with blood. This happened quite near to the opposite shore of the lake, so that in little more than half an hour after it was killed the animal was cut up and packed, and the canoe was again speeding towards the upper end of the lake, where the party arrived just as night began to fling its dark mantle over the wilderness.
Chapter Three. The Encampment.
Camping out in the woods at night is truly a delightful thing, and the pleasantest part of it, perhaps, is the lighting of the fire. Light is agreeable to human eyes and cheering to the human heart. Solomon knew and felt that when he penned the words, “A pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” And the rising of the sun is scarcely more grateful to the feelings than the lighting of a fire on a dark night. So our friends thought and felt, when the fire blazed up, but they were too busy and too hungry at the time to think about the state of their feelings.
The Indian was hungry. A good fire had to be made before the venison could be roasted, so he gave his whole attention to the felling of dry trees and cutting them up into logs for the fire. Jasper was also hungry, and a slight shower had wetted all the moss and withered grass, so he had enough to do to strike fire with flint and steel, catch a spark on a little piece of tinder, and then blow and coax the spark into a flame.
The artist was indeed free to indulge in a little meditation; but he had stumbled in the dark on landing, and bruised his shins, so he could only sit down on a rock and rub them and feel miserable.
But the fire soon caught; branches were heaped up, great logs were piled on, forked tongues of flame began to leap up and lick the branches of the overhanging trees. The green leaves looked rich and warm; the thick stems looked red and hot; the faces and clothes of the men seemed as if about to catch fire as they moved about the encampment preparing supper. In short, the whole scene was so extremely comfortable, in reality as well as in appearance, that Heywood forgot his bruised shins and began to rub his hands with delight.
In a very short time three juicy venison-steaks were steaming before the three travellers, and in a much shorter time they had disappeared altogether and were replaced by three new ones. The mode of cooking was very simple. Each steak was fixed on a piece of stick and set up before the fire to roast. When one side was ready, the artist, who seemed to have very little patience, began to cut off pieces and eat them while the other side was cooking.
To say truth, men out in those regions have usually such good appetites that they are not particular as to the cooking of their food. Quantity, not quality, is what they desire. They generally feel very much like the Russian, of whom it is said, that he would be content to eat sawdust if only he got plenty of it! The steaks were washed down with tea. There is no other drink in Rupert’s Land. The Hudson’s Bay Company found that spirits were so hurtful to the Indians that they refused to send them into the country; and at the present day there is no strong drink to be had for love or money over the length and breadth of their territories, except at those places where other fur-traders oppose them, and oblige them, in self-defence, to sell fire-water, as the Indians call it.
Tea is the great—the only—drink in Rupert’s Land! Yes, laugh as ye will, ye lovers of gin and beer and whisky, one who has tried it, and has seen it tried by hundreds of stout stalwart men, tells you that the teetotaller is the best man for real hard work.
The three travellers drank their tea and smacked their lips, and grinned at each other with great satisfaction. They could not have done more if it had been the best of brandy and they the jolliest of topers! But the height of their enjoyment was not reached until the pipes were lighted.
It was quite a sight to see them smoke! Jasper lay with his huge frame extended in front of the blaze, puffing clouds of smoke thick enough to have shamed a small cannon. Arrowhead rested his back on the stump of a tree, stretched his feet towards the fire, and allowed the smoke to roll slowly through his nostrils as well as out at his mouth, so that it kept curling quietly round his nose, and up his cheeks, and into his eyes, and through his hair in a most delightful manner; at least so it would seem, for his reddish-brown face beamed with happy contentment.
Young Heywood did not smoke, but he drew forth his sketch-book and sketched his two companions; and in the practice of his beloved art, I have no doubt, he was happier than either.
“I wonder how many trading-posts the Hudson’s Bay Company has got?” said Heywood, as he went on with his work.
“Hundreds of ’em,” said Jasper, pressing the red-hot tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with the end of his little finger, as slowly and coolly as if his flesh were fire-proof. “I don’t know, exactly, how many they’ve got. I doubt if anybody does, but they have them all over the country. You’ve seen a little of the country now, Heywood; well, what you have seen is very much like what you will see as long as you choose to travel hereaway. You come to a small clearing in the forest, with five or six log houses in it, a stockade round it, and a flagstaff in the middle of it; five, ten, or fifteen men, and a gentleman in charge. That’s a Hudson’s Bay Company’s trading-post. All round it lie the wild woods. Go through the woods for two or three hundred miles and you’ll come to another such post, or fort, as we sometimes call ’em. That’s