Rolf in the Woods

First they bathed the invalid’s head in water as hot as he could stand it. This seemed to help him so much that he swallowed eagerly some soup that they poured into his mouth. A bed was made for him in a sunny place and the hunters set about the new building.

In three days the storehouse was done, excepting the chinking. It was October now, and a sharp night frost warned them of the hard white moons to come. Quonab, as he broke the ice in a tin cup and glanced at the low-hung sun, said: “The leaves are falling fast; snow comes soon; we need another line of traps.”

He stopped suddenly; stared across the lake. Rolf looked, and here came three deer, two bucks and a doe, trotting, walking, or lightly clearing obstacles, the doe in advance; the others, rival followers. As they kept along the shore, they came nearer the cabin. Rolf glanced at Quonab, who nodded, then slipped in, got down the gun, and quickly glided unseen to the river where the deer path landed. The bucks did not actually fight, for the season was not yet on, but their horns were clean, their necks were swelling, and they threatened each other as they trotted after the leader. They made for the ford as for some familiar path, and splashed through, almost without swimming. As they landed, Rolf waited a clear view, then gave a short sharp “Hist!” It was like a word of magic, for it turned the three moving deer to three stony-still statues. Rolf’s sights were turned on the smaller buck, and when the great cloud following the bang had deared away, the two were gone and the lesser buck was kicking on the ground some fifty yards away.

“We have found the good hunting; the deer walk into camp,” said Quonab; and the product of the chase was quickly stored, the first of the supplies to be hung in the new storehouse.

The entrails were piled up and covered with brush and stones. “That will keep off ravens and jays; then in winter the foxes will come and we can take their coats.”

Now they must decide for the morning. Skookum was somewhat better, but still very sick, and Rolf suggested: “Quonab, you take the gun and axe and lay a new line. I will stay behind and finish up the cabin for the winter and look after the dog.” So it was agreed. The Indian left the camp alone this time and crossed to the east shore of the lake; there to follow up another stream as before and to return in three or four days to the cabin.

Chapter 28. Alone in the Wilderness

Rolf began the day by giving Skookum a bath as hot as he could stand it, and later his soup. For the first he whined feebly and for the second faintly wagged his tail; but clearly he was on the mend.

Now the chinking and moss-plugging of the new cabin required all attention. That took a day and looked like the biggest job on hand, but Rolf had been thinking hard about the winter. In Connecticut the wiser settlers used to bank their houses for the cold weather; in the Adirondacks he knew it was far, far colder, and he soon decided to bank the two shanties as deeply as possible with earth. A good spade made of white oak, with its edge hardened by roasting it brown, was his first necessity, and after two days of digging he had the cabin with its annex buried up to “the eyes” in fresh, clean earth.

A stock of new, dry wood for wet weather helped to show how much too small the cabin was; and now the heavier work was done, and Rolf had plenty of time to think.

Which of us that has been left alone in the wilderness does not remember the sensations of the first day! The feeling of self-dependency, not unmixed with unrestraint; the ending of civilized thought; the total reversion to the primitive; the nearness of the wood-folk; a sense of intimacy; a recurrent feeling of awe at the silent inexorability of all around; and a sweet pervading sense of mastery in the very freedom. These were among the feelings that swept in waves through Rolf, and when the first night came, he found such comfort — yes, he had to confess it — in the company of the helpless little dog whose bed was by his own.

But these were sensations that come not often; in the four days and nights that he was alone they lost all force.

The hunter proverb about “strange beasts when you have no gun” was amply illustrated now that Quonab had gone with their only firearm. The second night before turning in (he slept in the shanty now), he was taking a last look at the stars, when a large, dark form glided among the tree trunks between him and the shimmering lake; stopped, gazed at him, then silently disappeared along the shore. No wonder that he kept the shanty door closed that night, and next morning when he studied the sandy ridges he read plainly that his night visitor had been not a lynx or a fox, but a prowling cougar or panther.