Before them stretched the gray-white expanse of the lake, and on either side the glistening white sh.o.r.es, now receding as they pa.s.sed a deep bay, again creeping out in a long point. There was no sound save the sharp ring of the skates and the soft grate of the smoothly slipping toboggan. Past two big summer hotels with blank staring windows, past shuttered and deserted summer camps they sped until all sign of man"s handiwork disappeared. The keen air was like wine in their veins and it was hard to believe that the thermometer had registered eighteen below zero that morning, for the air was dry and did not penetrate as would the moisture laden air at home at a temperature many degrees above the zero mark.
"I just can"t believe that thermometer was on its job," protested Hal, as they stopped for a breathing spell half-way down the lake. "Why, I"m so warm I wish I was rid of this mackinaw."
"Me too," added Walter.
Pat suddenly whirled Hal around and looked keenly at his left ear. The rim was a dead white. "If you can"t believe the thermometer perhaps you can believe this," said he drily as he touched the ear. "What did I tell you about keeping your cap down over your ears? Shure, "tis a tenderfoot and not a first cla.s.s Scout at all, at all, thot ye be."
"What do you mean?" demanded Hal as he slipped a glove off to feel of the ear. At the look of blank astonishment that swept across his face as he discovered that the edge of his ear was stiff and wholly without feeling the others roared with laughter.
"I mean that you"re frost-bitten already," replied Pat, "and I hope that this will be a lesson to the whole bunch of you. You may not feel him, but old Jack Frost is right on the job just the same, and it don"t do up here to needlessly expose yourself. It is because the air is so dry that you don"t feel the frost, but you freeze just the same. We"ll run over to that point and thaw you out, and then I guess you"ll keep your cap down where it belongs."
At the point Pat rubbed the frosted ear vigorously with a handful of snow until the frost was out and for a few minutes Hal danced with the ache of it, while the others grinned. "That"s one on me, all right, and you"re welcome to laugh, but little Hal Harrison has learned his lesson.
No more frost-bites for me, thank you," he growled. "I don"t wish you fellows any hard luck, but I hope you"ll get a taste of it yourselves just to know what it feels like."
Walter and Sparrer took warning from Hal"s experience and saw to it that their ears were well covered before they started on. As they drew near the end of the lake Old Baldy and Mount Seward loomed up with a grandeur and forbidding austerity that was almost menacing, and which was yet grandly heroic. The long pier of Woodcraft Camp jutting out into the lake was now clearly visible and on the end of it were two figures waving greetings.
"It"s the Big Chief and Mother Merriam! Let"s give them the old yell!"
cried Upton.
They stopped and with Upton to lead sent the old Woodcraft yell ringing down the lake--"Whoop-yi-yi-yi! Whoop-yi-yi-yi! Whoop-yi-yi-yi!
Woodcraft!" And even as the echoes flung it back from Old Baldy it was returned to them in the mingled voices of a man and a woman. The doctor and Mrs. Merriam were sending them welcome.
A few minutes later they reached the pier and were exchanging warm greetings. Sparrer had felt a natural diffidence at the thought of meeting the man of whom he had heard so much, but it vanished in the first hand-clasp and by the time he had reached the snug cabin he felt as if he had always known this great-hearted, kindly man and the sweet-faced woman whom the others called "Mother." In a dim way he understood the loyalty and affection of his comrades for these two who were devoting their lives to the making of strong men from weak boys.
CHAPTER VI
SNOW-SHOES AND FISH
Around the great log fire that night Pat told Doctor Merriam about his trip and his impressions of city life, winding up with the emphatically expressed conviction that while it might be a good place to do business it was no place in which to live, and that he would rather have a cabin in the shadow of Old Baldy than a palace on Riverside Drive.
"So you don"t envy Hal?" laughed the doctor.
"I do not!" roared Pat. "I wouldn"t give the poorest muskrat pelt I ever took to change places with him."
"Oh, you young savage!" cried the doctor. "Still, I share in a measure your feeling. I have lived in many cities, but you see here I am buried in the woods, and some of my friends wonder why. I"ll tell you. It is because here I can live simply, unaffectedly, true to myself and to G.o.d.
Here," he swept a hand toward the book-lined walls, "are my friends ready to give me of inspiration, comfort, advice, knowledge, whatever I demand or may need. They are not dead things, these books. They are living personalities, which have enriched and are enriching the world.
When you boys listen to me you are not listening just to an audible voice. You are listening to an expression of that invisible something that we call the spirit--the true personality. And so it is that the writer of a great or good book never dies. His spiritual expression is there on the printed page just as much as if he were giving expression to it in audible speech. So with all these great and wonderful men and women constantly about me how can I ever be lonely? And then when I step out-of-doors it is directly into the temple of G.o.d. His nearness and presence are manifest in every phase of nature. The trees are alive, some of them sleeping, but alive nevertheless, and others not even sleeping. Sometimes I wonder if the very rocks are not alive. The elements seemingly war with one another, but there is nothing mean or petty or base in the mighty struggle, as there invariably is in the conflict of human pa.s.sions. The Indian sees the Great Spirit in the lightning, and hears him in the rushing wind and the thunder, and is not afraid, but bows in reverence. He has a sense of nearness to the creator and loses it when he is confined in the man-made world of brick and stone and steel and is eager to get back. It is elemental in him. In nature he sees G.o.d made manifest. We call him a savage, but I sometimes wonder if he is not more nearly a true child of the Father of all than many so-called civilized men who win the plaudits of the world and seem to forget whence they came and whither they will go.
"But I didn"t mean to preach a sermon, but just to give you an idea of why Pat and I prefer to be savages, if you please, and spend our lives with nature. Now, Pat, what are your plans? When do you start in for camp? Haven"t heard a word since you left from"--he paused at a warning wink from Pat, and then finished--"your partner. Big Jim was down from the lumber camp this week and reported seeing a silver gray. If you could catch a couple of those fellows that problem of going away to school would pretty nearly settle itself."
"What"s a silver gray?" asked Hal, whose knowledge of fur bearers was rather limited.
"A color phase of the common red fox," replied the doctor, "and if not worth its weight in gold it is worth so much that a single skin is often worth twice over the whole of a season"s catch of other furs. Why it should be called silver I don"t know, for the only silver about it is the tip of the tail. The color is black, and single skins have sold as high as $2,500 and more and $800 to $1,500 is not at all unusual. So valuable are the skins that black fox farming has become an established industry and a pair of black foxes for breeding purposes are worth from $1,000 up. So you see, Jim saw considerable money running loose when he saw that fox."
"Phew!" exclaimed Hal with a low whistle of astonishment. "I didn"t suppose there was anything on four legs except blooded live stock worth so much money. Wouldn"t it be great if Pat could catch three or four this winter!"
Pat threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Make it a dozen while you"re about it, son," said he. "Don"t be so modest. I"ve lived in these woods some years, but I never yet have seen a live black fox, and I"ve known of only two being caught. If Jim says he saw one he did. There"s nothing the matter with Jim"s eyesight. I guess I"ll have to have a look around the neighborhood where he saw it. As for our plans, Doctor, we are going to spend to-morrow with you and give these tenderfeet a few lessons on snow-shoes. We"ll hit the trail for camp bright and early the next morning."
The next day dawned clear and cold and after a hearty breakfast the snow-shoes were brought forth. First Pat explained the tie in common use and showed just how to adjust the rawhide thongs to give free play to the ankles and yet prevent the toes from creeping forward to the crossbars. With the thongs properly adjusted the shoes could be easily kicked off or put on again without untying the knots.
"The chief thing to remember," said he, "is to take a long stride with the toes pointed straight ahead. If you take a short step you will be almost certain to step on the tail of one shoe with the toe of the other and over you go. Now I"ll show you how, and you fellows can practice a while out here in front where the snow has been cleared away until you get the hang of the thing. Then we"ll make a little trip out into the woods and visit some of the old places, so you can see how different they are from what they were last summer."
"I have a suggestion to make," said the doctor. "While Mother puts up a lunch, you get these youngsters so that they can keep right side up.
Then we"ll all take a short hike and show Muldoon how real woodmen can have a hot meal when there is three feet of snow in the woods."
"Hurrah!" shouted Hal. "That will be bully! Come on, Walt, and let"s see your paces."
For the next fifteen minutes the three boys tramped back and forth in front of the cabin, the shoes clacking merrily amid a running fire of chaff and comment from Pat. Once Sparrer stepped on one of Upton"s shoes and sent him headlong, to the huge delight of the others. Again Hal did just what Pat had warned them against, took a short step and tripped himself up. But at the end of a quarter of an hour they had pretty well "got the hang of the thing," as Pat expressed it, and were eager to try it on deep snow.
"There"s nothing to it," declared Hal. "I thought there were something to learn, like skating, but this is a cinch. I could keep it up all day," and by way of emphasizing his remarks once more tripped himself up, and sat down abruptly.
"Sure, it"s no trick at all," chaffed Walter. "When you can"t keep up sit down, and when you"re down stay down. There"s nothing to it." For Hal, forgetting the width of his present underpinning, had no sooner scrambled to his feet than he had gone down again, because of the overlapping webs.
The doctor and Mrs. Merriam now joined them, for the latter was an expert on shoes and had no mind to miss the outing. Pat and the doctor swung to their backs the packs wherein were the supplies and dishes, and they were off, the doctor in the lead, Mrs. Merriam next, then Sparrer, Hal, Upton and Pat in the rear to keep the tenderfeet from straggling and to pull them out of the snow, he explained.
For a short distance a broken trail was followed. Then the doctor abruptly swung off among the trees where the snow lay deep and unbroken.
The three novices soon found that progress here was a very different matter from walking on the comparatively hard surface of the packed trail. The shoes sank in perhaps a couple of inches and it was necessary to lift the feet more, to step high, which put more of a strain on the muscles. Also there was a tendency to step higher than was at all in good form, and to shorten the stride by so doing, losing the smooth easy forward roll from the hips.
Still, all things considered, the three novices were doing themselves proud until in an unguarded moment Hal stepped on the stub of a broken branch of a fallen tree buried in the snow. It caught in the tail of the shoe just enough to break his stride. He took a short step to catch his balance, stumbled and took a beautiful header. At Pat"s roar of laughter the others turned to see two big webs wildly waving above the snow and nothing more of the unfortunate Hal. Now being plunged head first into deep snow with a pair of snow-shoes on your feet is a good deal like being thrown into the water with a life preserver fast to your feet--you can"t get them down. For a few moments the others howled with glee as they watched the frantically kicking legs and listened to the smothered appeals for help from the luckless victim. Then Pat reached out and loosened the shoes, gripped Hal by the ankles and drew him forth, red in the face from his exertions and spitting out snow. He looked so wholly bewildered and withal so chagrined and foolish that he was greeted with a fresh peal of laughter, to which he responded with a sheepish grin as he tried to get the snow out of his neck and from up his sleeves.
"There"s nothing to it, nothing at all!" jeered Walter.
"I didn"t know but you thought you heard that black fox down there and were trying to get him," said Pat.
At that instant Upton involuntarily stepped back, a thing for which snow-shoes were never designed, and a second later had measured his length in the snow. Falling at full length he did not disappear as Hal had done, but he was hardly less helpless. Every effort to help himself by putting his hands down was futile. He simply buried his arms to the shoulders in the yielding snow without finding anything on which to get a purchase. Hal was jubilant.
"When you"re down stay down!" he yelped. "Laugh at me, will you?"
Walter had by this time managed to kick his shoes off and once free of these was soon on his feet and was enjoying the joke as much as any one.
Both he and Hal were up to their hips in the snow, for here among the evergreens it had not packed and flounder as they would they could not get out.
The doctor"s eyes twinkled as he picked up Hal"s shoes and handed them to him. "Well, boys," said he, "it"s high time we were hitting the trail again. Suppose you put your shoes on, and we"ll make up for lost time."
Hal took the shoes and then looked helplessly across at Walter, who had just secured his, and it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps the doctor"s remark was not so guileless as it seemed.
"How in thunder are we going to?" he demanded, vainly trying to force a shoe down to meet an upraised foot half-way, in the doing of which he once more lost his balance.
"I thought I showed you fellows just how to put your shoes on this morning. A good Scout ought not to have to be shown twice how to do a simple thing like that," said Pat, without cracking a smile. "What kind of Scouts are you, anyway, crying for help the first time you tumble in a little bit of snow?"
"Who"s crying for help?" demanded Upton, vainly striving to get a shoe down where he could get his foot into the fastening. "I wouldn"t take any help now if I thought I"d got to stay here all day. Take that and that!"
He began to dig furiously with the shoe, throwing the snow with malice aforethought full in Pat"s face. Hal instantly took the cue and there was a hasty retreat on the part of their tormentors, in the midst of which Sparrer came to grief and had his turn at the snow-sh.o.e.r"s baptism. In a few minutes Walter had dug away enough snow to get his shoes under him and walked forth in triumph, followed by Hal. Sparrer, anxious to prove himself a good sport, refused all aid. Being small and light he had not sunk in as the others had and managed to get one shoe under him. With this for a support he soon had the other fastened. It was the work of a moment to adjust the first one and he was ready to take his place in line.
There were no more mishaps and as they tramped on through the great still woodland the wonder and the beauty of it silenced them, for it seemed like a vast cathedral in which the human voice would be a profanation of the solemn hush. Upton knew every foot within a radius of two miles of Woodcraft Camp, and for five miles in the direction in which they were heading, and yet not even to Sparrer did the surroundings seem more strange, such is the alchemy of the snow king to make the familiar unfamiliar, the commonplace beautiful. So it was that when at the end of three miles they emerged on the sh.o.r.e of a frozen sheet of water Walter at first failed utterly to recognize it, and it was not until Pat made some reference to the huge pickerel Walter had caught during his first summer at Woodcraft that it dawned on him that this was the very setback where he had discovered Pat"s secret fishing grounds and on the sh.o.r.e of which he had given Pat his first lesson in boxing and in the meaning of the word honor.