XII THE HUNGRY PORCUPINE
Hugh was alone in a canoe struggling to make headway against the waves.Bearing down upon him, with the roaring of the storm wind, was anenormous black craft with a gigantic form towering in the bow andmenacing him with a huge knife. The boy was trying to turn his canoe, butin spite of all his efforts, it kept heading straight for the terrifyingfigure.
From somewhere far away a voice shouted, "Hugh, Hugh." The shouts grewlouder. Hugh woke suddenly to find his half-brother shaking him by theshoulder. Storm voices filled the air, wind roared through the trees,surf thundered on the rocks. A big wave, curling up the beach, wet hismoccasins as he struggled to his feet.
Wide awake in an instant, Hugh seized his blanket and fled up over thesmooth, rounded pebbles out of reach of the waves. In a moment herealized that Blaise was not with him. He looked back--and then heremembered. The supplies, the canoe, where were they? He and his brotherhad unloaded the canoe as usual the night before, had propped it up onthe paddles, and had crawled under it. But, overcome with weariness, theyhad left the packets of food and ammunition lying where they had beentossed, on the lower beach. Now, in the dull light of dawn, Hugh couldsee the waves rolling in and breaking far above where the packages hadbeen dropped. The canoe had disappeared. It took him but a moment tograsp all this. He ran back down the beach to join Blaise, who wasplunging in to his knees in the attempt to rescue what he could.
"The canoe?" Hugh shouted.
"Safe," Blaise replied briefly, and made a dash after a retreating wave,seizing a skin bag of corn just as it was floating away.
At the same instant Hugh caught sight of a packet of powder, and dartedafter it, a bitter cold wave breaking over him just as he bent to snatchthe packet.
The two worked with frantic haste, heedless of the waves that soaked themabove the knees and sometimes broke clear over their heads as theystooped to seize bag or package. They saved what they could, but thedried meat, one sack of corn, Hugh's bundle of extra clothing, the rollof birch bark and the pine gum for repairing the canoe, had all gone outinto the lake. The maple sugar was partly dissolved. Some of the powder,though the wrapping was supposed to be water-proof, was soaked, andHugh's gun, which he had carelessly left with the other things, was sowet it would have to be dried and oiled before it could be used. Blaisehad carried his gun to bed with him, and it was safe and dry.
Even the half-breed boy, who usually woke at the slightest sound, hadbeen so tired and had slept so heavily that the rising of the wind andthe pounding of the waves had not disturbed him. It was not until astrong gust lifted the canoe from over his head, and a falling paddlestruck him sharply, that he woke. He had sprung up, seized the overturnedcanoe and carried it to the shelter of a large rock. Then he hadreturned, flung his gun and the paddles farther up the beach, and hadaroused the still sleeping Hugh.
When everything they had rescued had been carried beyond the reach of thewaves and placed in the lee of a rock out of the wind, the two boysskirted the beach in the hope that the meat, corn or clothes might havebeen cast up in some other spot. The beach, at the head of a small andshallow cove, was not long. When Hugh had gone as far over pebbles andboulders as he could, he scrambled up the rock point that bounded thecove on the north and followed it to the end, without seeing anything ofthe lost articles. As he reached the bare rock tip, the sun was justcoming up among red and angry clouds across the water, flushing withcrimson and orange the wildly heaving waves. The wind was a little eastof north. No rain had fallen where the boys were camped, but Hugh feltsure from the clouds that a storm must have passed not many miles away.The little cove being open and unprotected to the northeast, the fullforce of the wind entered it and piled the waves upon the beach.
When Hugh returned to the camping place, he found that Blaise, who hadgone in the other direction, had had no better luck. The strong underpull of the retreating waves had carried the lost articles out to deepwater.
Going on with the journey in such a blow was out of the question. Theboys made themselves as comfortable as possible behind a heap of bouldersout of the wind.
"I wish we knew in which direction Ohrante is bound," Hugh said, as hescraped the last morsel of his scanty portion of corn porridge from hisbark dish, with the crude wooden spoon he had carved for himself.
"He went up the shore as we came down," Blaise replied. "He is probablygoing down now. Somewhere he has met his enemies and has taken oneprisoner at least."
"I wish we might have travelled farther before camping," Hugh returned.
Blaise shrugged in his French fashion. "He cannot go on in this weather,and we cannot either. Passing him last night was a great risk. I knewthat all their eyes would be blinded by the fire glare, so they could notsee into the shadows, else I should not have dared. All went well, yet wemust still be cautious and make but small fires and little smoke."
"No column of smoke can ascend high enough in this gale to be seen," Hughargued.
"But the smell will travel far, and the wind blows from us to them.Caution is never wasted, my brother."
Forced to discontinue the journey for most of the day, the lads spent thetime seeking food. They were far enough from Ohrante's camp to havelittle fear that any of his party would hear their shots, yet they choseto hunt to the north rather than to the south. With some of the drypowder and the shot that had been saved, Blaise started out first, whileHugh spread the wet powder to dry on a flat rock exposed to the sun butsheltered from the wind. Then he cleaned and dried his gun and greased itwith pork fat before leaving camp.
Hugh wandered the woods in search of game for several hours. He did notgo far back from shore. Traversing the thick woods, where there was muchundergrowth, was difficult and he did not greatly trust his ownwoodcraft. He had no wish to humiliate himself in his half-brother's eyesby losing his way. Moreover, as long as he kept where the wind reachedhim, he was not much annoyed by the mosquitoes, at their worst in June.Whenever he reached a spot where the wind did not penetrate, theirritating insects came about him in clouds, settling on his hands, face,wrists and neck and even getting inside his rather low necked, deerskinshirt.
Whether he did not go far enough into the woods or for some other reason,his luck was not good. He shot a squirrel and a long-eared, northern hareor snowshoe rabbit and missed another, but did not catch a glimpse ofdeer, moose, or bear. Neither squirrel nor rabbit meat was at its best inJune, but it was at least better than no meat at all. Carrying his meagerbag, he returned late in the afternoon. He found Blaise squatting over asmall cooking fire. The iron kettle gave out a most appetizing odor. Theyounger boy had secured three plump ruffed grouse. In the Lake Superiorwilderness of that day no laws prohibited the shooting of game birds outof season. The stew which appealed so strongly to Hugh's nostrils wasmade up of grouse and squirrel meat, with a very little salt pork to giveit savor.
The wind had fallen and since noon the waves had been going down. Bysunset, though the lake was by no means smooth, travel had becomepossible for skilled canoeists. Had Hugh and Blaise not been in such ahurry to put distance between themselves and Ohrante, they would havewaited until morning. They were so anxious to go on that they launchedthe canoe while the afterglow was still reflected in pink and lavender onthe eastern sky. A few miles would bring them to the Devil Track River,but, not choosing to camp in that evil spot, Blaise insisted on landingabout a mile below the stream mouth.
Leaving their camp early next morning, the two started overland to theDevil Track. All day long they sought for some trace of the hidden cache.Not until after sunset did they cease their efforts. Weary anddisheartened they returned to their camping place, Hugh in the lead. Theyhad left the canoe turned bottom up over their supplies and wellconcealed by a thicket of red-stemmed osier dogwoods. The elder brother'ssharp exclamation when he reached the spot made the younger one hasten tohis side.
"Look!" cried Hugh, pointing to the birch craft.
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sp; Blaise did not need to be told to look. The ragged, gaping hole in thebark was too conspicuous. "A porcupine," he exclaimed.
"It was the devil in the form of a porcupine, I think," Hugh muttered."What possessed the beast?"
"He smelled the pork and gnawed his way through to it. The porcupineloves all things salt. We will see."
Blaise was right. When the canoe was lifted, the boys discovered that thesmall chunk of salt pork was gone, taken out through the hole the beasthad gnawed. Nothing else was missing.
"Either he didn't like the other things or the pork was all he couldcarry away at one trip," said Hugh. "If we had stayed away a littlelonger, he might have made off with the corn and the sugar as well."
"The loss of the pork is bad," Blaise commented gravely. "The hole in thecanoe is bad also, and we must delay to mend it."
The loss of the pork was indeed serious. The rabbit and the squirrel Hughhad shot the day before had been eaten, and nothing else remained but afew handfuls of corn and a little sugar. So once more, after setting somesnares, the lads went to sleep supperless. They slept with the corn andsugar between them for protection.
Blaise might have suspected that the fiend of the river had put a spellon his snares, for in the morning he found them all empty. The dry, stonyground showed no tracks. If any long-legged hare had come that way, hehad been wary enough to avoid the nooses.
After the scantiest of breakfasts the boys set about repairing the canoe.Luckily the ball of wattap, the fine, tough roots of the spruce preparedfor use as thread, had not been lost when the waves covered the beach attheir former camp. From a near-by birch Blaise cut a strong, smooth pieceof bark without knotholes. With his knife he trimmed the ragged edges ofthe hole. Having softened and straightened his wattap by soaking it, hesewed the patch on neatly, using a large steel needle he had bought atthe trading post at the Kaministikwia.
In the meantime Hugh sought a pine grove up the river, where he obtainedsome chunks of resin. The resin he softened with heat to a sticky gum andapplied it to the seams and stitches. Blaise went over them again with alive coal held in a split stick, and spread the softened resin skillfullywith thumb and knife blade. Then the canoe was left bottom side up forthe gum to dry and harden.
In spite of the fact that the boys, on their way down the shore, hadsearched the land to the east of the Devil Track with considerablethoroughness, they were determined to go over it again. By means of afallen tree and the boulders that rose above the foaming rapids, theycrossed the river where it narrowed between rock walls. Late in theafternoon, Blaise, scrambling up a steep and stony slope well back fromthe stream, heard two shots in quick succession and then a third at alonger interval, the signal agreed upon to indicate that one or the otherhad come across something significant. The sounds came from the directionof the lake, and Blaise hastened down to the shore.