"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 w.i.l.l.y, 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 att.i.tude, 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, gla.s.sy, 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y was nearing their sh.o.r.e, and the bow of his canoe, a real birch canoe made by himself, landed on the beach, whereupon, w.i.l.l.y 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, w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y.
"Oh, Mister Horse! Will you really?" giggled Emma.
w.i.l.l.y 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 sh.o.r.e. The Indian then trotted off into the forest. On this trip he fetched an armful of "lodge"-poles. After tr.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y 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 w.i.l.l.y 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, w.i.l.l.y. But why do you do so much for us?" she asked.
"w.i.l.l.y"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!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, w.i.l.l.y," 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, w.i.l.l.y Hoss"s canoe is down yonder hidden under the bushes.
He said you were to use it, Grace. He has gone away."