第35章

Sure enough, after two hundred yards of following the prints of sharp hoofs and occasional gobbets of blood on the leaves, he came upon his prey dead.It became necessary to transport the animal to camp.Thorpe stuck his hunting knife deep into the front of the deer's chest, where the neck joins, which allowed most of the blood to drain away.Then he fastened wild grape vines about the antlers, and, with a little exertion drew the body after him as though it had been a toboggan.

It slid more easily than one would imagine, along the grain; but not as easily as by some other methods with which Thorpe was unfamiliar.

At camp he skinned the deer, cut most of the meat into thin strips which he salted and placed in the sun to dry, and hung the remainder in a cool arbor of boughs.The hide he suspended over a pole.

All these things he did hastily, as though he might be in a hurry;as indeed he was.

At noon he cooked himself a venison steak and some tea.Then with his hatchet he cut several small pine poles, which he fashioned roughly in a number of shapes and put aside for the future.The brains of the deer, saved for the purpose, he boiled with water in his tin pail, wishing it were larger.With the liquor thus obtained he intended later to remove the hair and grain from the deer hide.

Toward evening he caught a dozen trout in the pool below the dam.

These he ate for supper.

Next day he spread the buck's hide out on the ground and drenched it liberally with the product of deer-brains.Later the hide was soaked in the river, after which, by means of a rough two-handled spatula, Thorpe was enabled after much labor to scrape away entirely the hair and grain.He cut from the edge of the hide a number of long strips of raw-hide, but anointed the body of the skin liberally with the brain liquor.

"Glad I don't have to do that every day!" he commented, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist.

As the skin dried he worked and kneaded it to softness.The result was a fair quality of white buckskin, the first Thorpe had ever made.If wetted, it would harden dry and stiff.Thorough smoking in the fumes of punk maple would obviate this, but that detail Thorpe left until later.

"I don't know whether it's all necessary," he said to himself doubtfully, "but if you're going to assume a disguise, let it be a good one."In the meantime, he had bound together with his rawhide thongs several of the oddly shaped pine timbers to form a species of dead-fall trap.It was slow work, for Thorpe's knowledge of such things was theoretical.He had learned his theory well, however, and in the end arrived.

All this time he had made no effort to look over the pine, nor did he intend to begin until he could be sure of doing so in safety.

His object now was to give his knoll the appearances of a trapper's camp.

Towards the end of the week he received his first visit.Evening was drawing on, and Thorpe was busily engaged in cooking a panful of trout, resting the frying pan across the two green spruce logs between which glowed the coals.Suddenly he became aware of a presence at his side.How it had reached the spot he could not imagine, for he had heard no approach.He looked up quickly.

"How do," greeted the newcomer gravely.

The man was an Indian, silent, solemn, with the straight, unwinking gaze of his race.

"How do," replied Thorpe.

The Indian without further ceremony threw his pack to the ground, and, squatting on his heels, watched the white man's preparations.

When the meal was cooked, he coolly produced a knife, selected a clean bit of hemlock bark, and helped himself.Then he lit a pipe, and gazed keenly about him.The buckskin interested him.

"No good," said he, feeling of its texture.

Thorpe laughed."Not very," he confessed.

"Good," continued the Indian, touching lightly his own moccasins.

"What you do?" he inquired after a long silence, punctuated by the puffs of tobacco.

"Hunt; trap; fish," replied Thorpe with equal sententiousness.

"Good," concluded the Indian, after a ruminative pause.

That night he slept on the ground.Next day he made a better shelter than Thorpe's in less than half the time; and was off hunting before the sun was an hour high.He was armed with an old-fashioned smooth-bore muzzle-loader; and Thorpe was astonished, after he had become better acquainted with his new companion's methods, to find that he hunted deer with fine bird shot.The Indian never expected to kill or even mortally wound his game;but he would follow for miles the blood drops caused by his little wounds, until the animals in sheer exhaustion allowed him to approach close enough for a dispatching blow.At two o'clock he returned with a small buck, tied scientifically together for toting, with the waste parts cut away, but every ounce of utility retained.

"I show," said the Indian:--and he did.Thorpe learned the Indian tan; of what use are the hollow shank bones; how the spinal cord is the toughest, softest, and most pliable sewing-thread known.

The Indian appeared to intend making the birch-knoll his permanent headquarters.Thorpe was at first a little suspicious of his new companion, but the man appeared scrupulously honest, was never intrusive, and even seemed genuinely desirous of teaching the white little tricks of the woods brought to their perfection by the Indian alone.He ended by liking him.The two rarely spoke.They merely sat near each other, and smoked.One evening the Indian suddenly remarked:

"You look 'um tree."

"What's that?" cried Thorpe, startled.

"You no hunter, no trapper.You look 'um tree, for make 'um lumber."The white had not begun as yet his explorations.He did not dare until the return of the logging crew or the passing of someone in authority at the up-river camp, for he wished first to establish in their minds the innocence of his intentions.

"What makes you think that, Charley?" he asked.

"You good man in woods," replied Injin Charley sententiously, "Itell by way you look at him pine."

Thorpe ruminated.