Grace Harlowe\'s Overland Riders in the Great North Woods
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Jessie Graham Flower >> Grace Harlowe\'s Overland Riders in the Great North Woods
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"Call off the bear!" commanded Grace sharply. "The man is our friend."
"He's a lazy good-for-nothin' and he's stole yer breakfast," protested
the forest woman, as she headed off Henry and drove him back with sundry
prods of her foot.
"Good morning, Mr. Horse," greeted Emma.
"Mornin'," answered the Indian briefly.
Grace by this time was shaking hands with him; then the Overland girls
surrounded him and demanded to know why he had not been to see them
before.
Emma started to tell Willy what a lot of trouble they had been in when
Grace interjected a remark that caused Elfreda to wonder.
"Perhaps Willy Horse knows more about our late unpleasantnesses than you
do, Emma," said Grace.
"Hello, old man. How are you?" cried Hippy, striding forward with
outstretched hand.
"How do! You Big Friend. Me make breakfast fire here."
"Help yourself," urged the girls.
"All yours," added Hippy with a wave of the hand that encompassed the
entire camp.
"Not includin' the guide," differed Joe Shafto.
Grace told Willy to wait until their breakfast was ready and eat with
them, but the Indian shook his head and stolidly continued preparing his
own breakfast. When it was ready he ate it, then sat back and smoked his
pipe.
"See other Big Friend," he finally vouchsafed.
"Tom Gray?" questioned Grace, instantly divining who Willy meant.
The Indian nodded his head.
"Him say all right," he added after an interval of puffing. "Say him
come along bymeby. Say Willy Horse show you place to camp. Me show."
"That will be fine. Did my husband say when he expected to join us?"
asked Grace.
"Say him come along soon. You see other white men?" Willy bent a steady
look on the face of Hippy Wingate.
"I should say we have. Deputy sheriffs, game wardens and a forest
ranger."
"Yes, and we saw a fellow named Peg Tatem. We had a fight with him,"
Emma informed their visitor.
"So?"
"Yes, we did, Mr. Horse. And some one shot a hole through his wooden
leg. Who do you suppose could have done that?"
"Big Friend, huh?" he questioned, looking up at Hippy.
"Not guilty," answered Hippy with a shake of the head.
"How come?" demanded the Indian.
Emma Dean told him the story, Willy listening gravely, puffing slowly at
his pipe, eyes fixed on the campfire. He smoked on in silence for some
time after the conclusion of her narrative.
"Mebby Willy find out," he grunted.
"You suspect, don't you?" demanded Elfreda, who had been narrowly
observing the Indian.
"Make breakfast. We go soon. Willy show where make camp." With that the
Indian rose, turned his back on them and loped into the forest. They saw
no more of him for fully two hours, and were already packed up and on
their way when they saw him standing with shoulder against a great tree,
watching their approach.
"You come along. Willy show," he directed as Hippy came abreast of him.
"How long will it take to reach this camp?" asked Lieutenant Wingate.
"Long time. Next sundown."
"To-morrow's or to-day's sundown?" demanded Emma.
"To-morrow."
Willy resumed his Indian gait, shoulders leaning forward, toes pointed
inward, his center of gravity well forward, and in this position he
trotted along for hours. The party halted at noon, but Willy Horse
jogged on ahead and was soon out of sight. He rejoined them after they
had resumed their journey and did not again stop until just before dark
when he announced that they would camp where they were. The Indian then
made browse-beds in the open for the Overland girls, and again
disappeared.
"What's the matter with that pesky savage?" demanded the forest woman.
"He's wuss'n the bear."
Hippy suggested that perhaps the Indian had gone off by himself to
listen to the voices of nature.
"Perhaps he has gone away to shoot somebody's wooden leg," suggested
Emma demurely.
Elfreda nodded, and said she too was convinced that Willy Horse had
fired the shots that shattered Peg Tatem's wooden leg, and the girls
agreed with her. They never got any nearer to the truth of that
occurrence, for, when questioned later about it, Willy Horse seemed
unable to understand what they were talking about.
The Indian did not reappear until the following morning. That day he led
them a long chase and kept the Overlanders at a fast jog. How he ever
stood up under it they could not imagine, and when they stopped he was
breathing naturally, and did not appear to be in the least fatigued.
"Come camp to-night," he told them when asked how near they were to
their destination.
The woman guide had little to say, but her sour expression told the
Overlanders that she was not pleased that the Indian was leading them.
The skies clouded over late in the afternoon, and later a drizzling rain
set in, but they continued on, well protected by their waterproof coats,
the hoods of which covered their heads. Henry, however, was a
disconsolate-looking object, but Hindenburg, riding in Hippy's saddle
bag, was dry and cosy, sleeping soundly as the rain pattered on his
sleeping quarters.
Night found the party still some little distance from its destination,
and Willy Horse was appealed to for encouragement. Emma wanted to camp
where they were but the others outvoted her, so on they rode.
From then on the journey was an unpleasant one. The shins of the riders
were barked from contact with trees. Low-hanging limbs of small
second-growth trees slapped their faces and deluged the riders with
water, and altogether they were experiencing about the most unpleasant
ride that they had ever taken, except possibly that across the Great
American Desert earlier in their vacation riding.
Grace, perhaps, was the only exception, in that she found herself
enjoying the unusual experience and the excitement of it, for the
stumbles of the ponies were frequent; here and there a tree was heard to
fall crashing to earth, and, high and piercing on the soggy night air,
they occasionally heard the mournful howl of a wolf.
"There goes seven dollars and a half," Emma would wail every time a wolf
howled.
Willy Horse finally shouted and indicated by a gesture, which was
revealed to the riders in the rear by Hippy's lamp, that he was about to
change his course. The Indian turned sharply to the right, proceeded in
a direct line for half a mile, as nearly as the Riders could judge, then
threw his arm straight up into the air.
"Be we there?" yelled the forest woman.
"We be. That is, we're here, but whether here is there or somewhere
else you will have to search the Indian for the answer. I don't know,"
answered Hippy.
"Wait! Me make fire," directed Willy.
The Overlanders, having sat their saddles so long, were literally
sticking to the leather, but wrenched themselves loose, slid off and
leaned against the steaming sides of their ponies, while water from the
trees filtered over them and ran in rivulets down their coats.
The flame of a cheerful campfire showed through the mist and was greeted
with a hoarse cheer by the cold Overland Riders.
"Is this the place where we are to stay until Mr. Gray joins us?" called
Grace.
"Yes," answered the Indian.
"Land sakes! I never could have found it," exclaimed the forest woman.
"Leastwise not in the dark. Reckon I might a follered the river and got
here somehow, but not the way that pesky savage took us, and ter think I
had ter be showed by a heathen how to get here."
The fire flamed into a snapping blaze, and then to the delight of the
party, they saw near at hand a large lean-to and two smaller ones.
"Willy, did you make them for us?" wondered Anne.
"Yes. Me make 'em."
"But, they must be soaked through," protested Nora. "How shall we be
able to sleep in a lean-to on a night like this."
"No leak. Bark on roof," the Indian informed her.
"Come, girls. Let us stake down and get close to that fire. I am
shivering," urged Elfreda.
"I expect my pup is too," said Hippy. "And the bear. Oh, where is he?"
Henry had disappeared and his master was too busy to bother about him.
After building a cook fire, Willy ran out into the forest, returning
soon thereafter with several large slices of bear meat, from stores that
he had safely cached, which he proceeded to fry over the fire while Mrs.
Shafto was boiling water for tea and opening cans of beans. The girls
threw off their wet garments and sank luxuriously into the browse floor
of their lean-to.
"Oh, girls, this is worth all the discomforts we have been through,
isn't it?" cried Anne enthusiastically.
"I don't know whether it is or not," answered Emma sourly. "Any port in
a storm, you know."
Hippy came in wet and dripping after caring for the ponies, with
Hindenburg tucked safely under his coat.
"Reminds me of France," he exclaimed jovially. "Say, children, may my
Hindenburg sleep in your quarters to-night? It will be warmer and more
comfortable for him than in mine."
"No!" shouted the Overland girls.
"He may sleep in the attic," suggested Emma. "Otherwise, on the roof.
Hippy, why do you keep that animal around? What is he good for except to
eat and sleep?"
"Don't you malign my bull pup. He is a watch dog, the best ever, and--"
Hippy's remaining words were lost in the shout of laughter that
interrupted him.
"Oh, Hippy, you are a scream," exclaimed Grace. "You know very well that
the only thing Hindenburg has watched since we started, is the food, and
always he has watched for us to throw some of it to him. Yes, he is a
wonderful watch dog."
All were now crowded into the lean-to, except Willy, who, after cooking
the bear-meat, said "Bye," and went away.
Good-nights were said early that evening and all hands turned in after
Mrs. Shafto had fed what was left of the supper to Henry. The bear had
come in immediately after getting the odor of one of his relatives being
cooked over the Overland Riders' campfire.
Rain roared on the bark roofs of the lean-tos all night long, but the
girls, dry and cosy, slept the night through without once awakening,
with Henry on guard out there sitting under a tree in a disconsolate
attitude, now and then wearily licking the water from his coat.
Hindenburg, more favored, slept cuddled between Lieutenant Wingate's
feet.
The present camp, it was understood between the Overlanders and Tom
Gray, was to be a permanent camp for some time to come, and it was here
that some of the most exciting scenes of their journey through the Great
North Woods were to be witnessed by them.
CHAPTER XVII
IN THE INDIAN TEPEE
The rain had ceased, when Grace, the first of her party to awaken,
looked out as she lay on her browse bed. The river was shining in the
morning sun, glassy, save here and there where its waters rippled over a
shallow of gravel.
"Turn out!" she shouted. "This is too wonderful to miss. Oh, look!"
A canoe, with an Indian crouching in its stern wielding a paddle, was
skimming across the stream, not a sound or splash of paddle, nor hardly
a ripple from it to be heard or seen.
"It's Willy Horse. Hurry, girls! Don't miss this wonderful nature
canvas."
Exclamations were heard from all the girls after they had rubbed the
sleep from their eyes. By then Willy was nearing their shore, and the
bow of his canoe, a real birch canoe made by himself, landed on the
beach, whereupon, Willy threw out a mess of speckled trout, sufficient
for breakfast for the entire party, amid little cries of delight from
the girls.
"Hey there, Thundercloud! Are those all for my breakfast?" called Hippy
from his lean-to.
"Hippy!" rebuked Nora.
"Oh, send him out in the woods to eat with Henry," advised Emma.
While the Overland girls were washing at the river, Willy cleaned the
fish and handed them to the forest woman who already had the cook fire
going. And such a breakfast as the Overland party had that morning!
Following the meal they made Willy take them for a ride in his canoe,
two at a time; then Hippy and the bull pup took a skim up and down the
river with Willy at the paddle.
"All we need now to make us feel like real aborigines is an Indian
wigwam or a tepee," suggested Grace to her companions.
"What is the difference between them?" asked Miss Briggs.
"A tepee is a temporary home; the wigwam is the Indian's permanent
abiding place."
"Me make," announced Willy.
"Oh, Mister Horse! Will you really?" giggled Emma.
Willy grunted, and, shoving off his canoe, paddled swiftly away. He
returned an hour later, the canoe loaded with strips of birch bark which
he carefully laid on the shore. The Indian then trotted off into the
forest. On this trip he fetched an armful of "lodge"-poles. After
trimming them, he tied three together with a long deerskin thong, about
eighteen inches from the tops of the poles, carrying the thong about
them a few times and leaving the end of it trailing down. The rest of
the poles he stood against the sides of the tripod at regular intervals
all the way around.
"Oh, it's an Indian house!" cried Emma. "It really is."
Thus far the work had been quickly accomplished, and now came the
enclosing of the structure. This Willy did by laying strips of bark on
the sloping "lodge"-poles, carrying the leather thong about them to hold
the bark firmly against the poles. The entrance, formed by spreading
poles apart, faced the waters of the Little Big Branch.
The tepee was finished shortly before eleven o'clock that morning, when
Willy hung a blanket of deerhide over the doorway. As yet, none of the
Overlanders had been permitted to look in and when they asked if they
might do so, "You wait. Me fix," answered the Indian, ducking into the
house he had created, and in a few moments they saw wisps of smoke
curling up from the peak of the tepee through the opening left by the
tops of the "lodge"-poles.
"You come," announced the Indian as he stepped out.
The girls lost no time in crawling into the tepee. Cries of delight rose
with the smoke of the lodge-fire that Willy had made with a few sticks
and pieces of bark, as they found themselves in a circular room fully
ten feet in diameter, in the center of which crackled a comforting
little fire, the draft carrying the smoke straight up and out of the
tepee.
"What if it should rain?" questioned Emma apprehensively.
"Me put cover over top," answered the Indian, whose stolid
expressionless face was peering in at them. "No rain come along. You
like?"
Miss Briggs got up and offered her hand to him.
"We do, Willy. But why do you do so much for us?" she asked.
"Willy's Big Friends," he answered gruffly, and started to back out, but
the girls would not let him go until each had shaken hands with him and
thanked him.
"By the way, where do you live?" wondered Nora.
"Summer time live on reservation. Hunting time live up here in tepee. Me
show. Me go hunting, too. Mebby shoot deer, mebby big moose. Bye!"
[Illustration: Grace Got One Spill and Essayed Another Attempt.]
"Oh, don't go away," begged Grace. "We like to have you here, and I
wish, too, that you would let me paddle that beautiful canoe. It is the
first bark canoe I have ever seen. I know how to paddle a modern canoe,
but I saw this morning that the bark boat is an entirely different
craft. Will you teach me?"
"Me show. Go meet Big Friend now."
"Bring him back with you, Willy," urged Grace, but the Indian already
had withdrawn, and when they looked out he had gone.
"Hey, you folks!" called Hippy, who was grooming Hindenburg with a horse
brush. "Where is the dinner?"
Grace said she had forgotten all about it, and that Mrs. Shafto had gone
out to try to shoot a duck.
"In the meantime we starve, eh? Hindenburg is so hungry that his sides
are caving in, and the bear has gone out into the woods to eat leaves.
By the way, Willy Hoss's canoe is down yonder hidden under the bushes.
He said you were to use it, Grace. He has gone away."
After dinner, which was more in the nature of a luncheon, Mrs. Shafto
came into camp with three ducks which she had shot, and promised her
charges that they should have stuffed roast duck for supper.
That afternoon Grace tried the canoe. She got one spill and was soaked
to the skin, but crawled back to shore laughing at her mishap, and
essayed another attempt.
"I thought my canoe was cranky, but this beats everything," she called
to her companions as she again floated out on the stream in the bark
canoe. The Overland girl practiced for half an hour, during which she
got the hang of the cranky bark canoe and did very well paddling it.
"Let me try it," begged Emma.
"You will not," objected Hippy. "Think I want to plunge into that cold
water and rescue you?"
"Do you think I am simple enough to fall in?" demanded Emma indignantly.
"Yes, and as often as I could pull you out. Then again, you would lose
yourself listening to the voices of nature and get into a fine, wet
mess. That nature stuff makes me weary."
Emma did not paddle the canoe that day, nor did any of the others
express a desire to do so. They saw no more of the Indian that day, and
that night the girls spread their blankets in the tepee.
"We must have a fire in here for the sake of cheerfulness," urged Anne.
"Yes. And burn ourselves up," objected Emma.
"There should be no danger unless we roll into the fire in our sleep,"
answered Miss Briggs.
A small fire was kindled in the tepee, and, for a long time after they
had gone in for the night, the Overland girls sat with feet doubled
under them, enjoying the novel sensation of having for their use a real
Indian tepee, and listening to Joe Shafto relate some of her experiences
in the Big North Woods.
The conversation was interrupted by Henry who poked his nose into the
tepee and sniffed the air inquisitively. A slight tap on his nose by the
guide sent the bear scampering away. After a hearty laugh at Henry's
expense, the girls rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep not to
awaken again until sunrise, when they were jolted out of their dreams by
a loud halloo.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRAIL OF THE PIRATES
"Tom's here!" shouted Grace. "All right, Tom. We will be out as soon as
we can find our way out of this roundhouse," she laughed, feeling for
the opening that, in the subdued light, looked like all the rest of the
tepee wall.
Tom was bronzed and happy, and after greeting the girls he inquired for
Henry and Hindenburg.
"The bear's out lookin' for his breakfast," answered the forest woman.
"And the bull pup is asleep. He keeps bankers' hours instead of
attending to his business," complained Emma.
After breakfast Tom told them of his work in the forest, adding that he
had observed evidences of the recent presence of timber-pirates.
"That is, I have found their blazes, secret cuttings on trees in remote
sections. This discovery I have marked on the map, and will inform the
authorities after I have finished 'cruising' the Pineries. This
afternoon I shall work north to look over some virgin forest ground
near here. Come along with me, won't you, Hippy?"
"Sure thing. We'll take Hindenburg for protection," agreed Hippy.
"Why not take the rest of the party?" suggested Grace.
"This is a business trip," replied Tom. "Of course you can go if you
wish, but it were better not, for we shall have to rough it in the real
sense of the word. Willy wants to go out with me, and may join us up
river sometime to-day."
"Where is the measly redskin, Cap'n?" demanded Joe.
"He has gone downstream. Willy has a camp a short distance below here.
That Indian is a real man."
"We have found him so," agreed Elfreda.
Joe Shafto grunted disdainfully.
Tom remained at the camp until after dinner, replenished his supplies,
including a stuffed duck which the forest woman prepared for him; then
he and Hippy set out on their ponies for up-river points.
"What is in the wind, Tom?" questioned Lieutenant Wingate after they got
under way. "I know you had some good reason other than merely desiring
my company, or you would not have asked me to go with you."
Tom laughed heartily.
"A little of both, Lieutenant. I hear that timber-pirates have been
making some cuttings above here, and I wish you to go along as a witness
to what I may find. That's all."
"No scraps in sight, eh?"
"Oh, no."
Hippy sighed.
"Tell me about it."
"Timber thieves seek the remote places and look for suitable plots that
can be cut off and floated downstream to the mills. There the logs are
thrown in with other logs, and branded on one end to correspond with
such logs as have been procured in a legitimate way. Should the pirates
be discovered, they frequently buy the plot, if they represent a big
concern, and nothing more is done so far as the authorities are
concerned."
"You don't mean to say that reputable lumber companies go in for
anything of that sort, do you?" wondered Hippy.
"I did not say 'reputable.' Of course not. All big concerns are not
necessarily reputable in the sense you mean, but there is many a man
to-day who holds his head high in the world, though the foundation of
his business was stolen timber."
Hippy uttered a low whistle of amazement.
"Look there!" exclaimed Tom Gray late in the afternoon as they rode into
a "cutting" from which the timber had been removed. Several acres had
been cut off, and skidways built up for more extensive operations,
probably for that very season.
Upon consulting his map, the forester found, as he had expected, that
the timber was not charted as belonging to private individuals. Tom
pointed to a man-made dam in the river. It had been constructed of
spiles--small logs, driven in like posts, set so that they leaned
upstream. The water gates were open, and, upon examination, showed that
logs had been floated there, for the marks of the logs were visible on
the sides of the gates and on the tops of the spiles. Added to this, the
floor of the dam was covered with last season's logs, hundreds of them.
"Will you please tell me why a dam is necessary to lumbering?"
questioned Lieutenant Wingate.
"To provide a good head of water on which to float logs down to the
mills when the river is low. The logs are dumped into the dam until it
is full; the gates are then opened and the logs go booming down towards
the mills. To be fully equipped there should be a second dam above this
one to wash down such timber as fails to clear. We will go on further
and see what we find."
They found the second dam, constructed across the river at a narrow
spot. It had been quite recently built, as Tom Gray found upon examining
the spiles and comparing their age with those of the lower dam.
"This looks to me like a fine piece of timber," he announced with a
sweeping gesture that took in the great trees that surrounded them. "We
will cruise as far as we can before dark and go over the rest of the
section to-morrow."
"And you believe 'pirates' are trying to hog all they can of it, do
you?" questioned Hippy.
"There can be no doubt of it. We have evidence of that."
"Suppose some one should step in and buy the section--what then?"
"It would serve the robbers right," declared Tom Gray with emphasis.
"What is the section worth?"
"Too much money for us. Say fifty to seventy-five thousand dollars, or
even more if it is owned by private persons. If the state owns it, the
latter figure probably would be about what one would have to pay for the
timber rights."
"At the latter price how much could a fellow expect to clear on the
deal?" persisted Hippy.
Tom said it would depend upon whether one sold the logs delivered at the
mill, or worked them into lumber at his own mill. It was his opinion
that the holder should earn a profit of a hundred thousand dollars or
more, in the latter instance, provided he had proper shipping
facilities.
"Of course, here you have the river on which to float your logs down to
the mill, which should be located at or near the lakes," added Tom.
"Look it over carefully to-morrow. I am getting interested to know more
about the lumber business. One can't have too much knowledge, you know.
Now that we have sold our coal lands in Kentucky, you and I are
interested in high finance. Eh, Tom?"
"Thanks to you, Hippy, we are."
The coal lands to which Hippy referred were part of an estate that had
been willed to him by an admiring uncle while Lieutenant Wingate was a
member of the United States Army Air Forces in France. The Overland
Riders had made the Kentucky Mountains the scene of their summer's
outing the year before their present journey, and there experienced many
stirring adventures. Hippy, at first, decided to work the mines himself,
with Tom Gray as his partner, but that winter they received an offer for
the property and sold it outright for a large sum of money, which
Lieutenant Wingate insisted they should share equally.
The two friends, after sitting about their campfire until a late hour
that night discussing the subject that had taken strong hold of Hippy's
mind, lay down to sleep in the open.
Immediately after breakfast next morning Tom and Hippy started out to
make a thorough "cruise" of the pine trees in the section from which a
few acres of logs had been cut. They finished their work late in the
afternoon, but Tom did not venture a further opinion on what he had seen
until they were on their way to their camp, where they had decided to
remain another night.
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