He was full of delight over everything that savored of the woods, or woodscraft.The most trivial and everyday affairs of the life interested him.His eager questions, so frankly proffered, aroused even the taciturn Charley to eloquence.The construction of the shelter, the cut of a deer's hide, the simple process of "jerking"venison,--all these awakened his enthusiasm.
"It must be good to live in the woods," he said with a sigh, "to do all things for yourself.It's so free!"The men's moccasins interested him.He asked a dozen questions about them,--how they were cut, whether they did not hurt the feet, how long they would wear.He seemed surprised to learn that they are excellent in cold weather.
"I thought ANY leather would wet through in the snow!" he cried.
"I wish I could get a pair somewhere!" he exclaimed."You don't know where I could buy any, do you?" he asked of Thorpe.
"I don't know," answered he, "perhaps Charley here will make you a pair.""WILL you, Charley?" cried the boy.
"I mak' him," replied the Indian stolidly.
The many-voiced night of the woods descended close about the little camp fire, and its soft breezes wafted stray sparks here and there like errant stars.The newcomer, with shining eyes, breathed deep in satisfaction.He was keenly alive to the romance, the grandeur, the mystery, the beauty of the littlest things, seeming to derive a deep and solid contentment from the mere contemplation of the woods and its ways and creatures.
"I just DO love this!" he cried again and again."Oh, it's great, after all that fuss down there!" and he cried it so fervently that the other men present smiled; but so genuinely that the smile had in it nothing but kindliness.
"I came out for a month," said he suddenly, "and I guess I'll stay the rest of it right here.You'll let me go with you sometimes hunting, won't you?" he appealed to them with the sudden open-heartedness of a child."I'd like first rate to kill a deer.""Sure," said Thorpe, "glad to have you."
"My name is Wallace Carpenter," said the boy with a sudden unmistakable air of good-breeding.
"Well," laughed Thorpe, "two old woods loafers like us haven't got much use for names.Charley here is called Geezigut, and mine's nearly as bad; but I guess plain Charley and Harry will do.""All right, Harry," replied Wallace.
After the young fellow had crawled into the sleeping bag which his guide had spread for him over a fragrant layer of hemlock and balsam, Thorpe and his companion smoked one more pipe.The whip-poor-wills called back and forth across the river.Down in the thicket, fine, clear, beautiful, like the silver thread of a dream, came the notes of the white-throat--the nightingale of the North.
Injin Charley knocked the last ashes from his pipe.
"Him nice boy!" said he.
Chapter XIX
The young fellow stayed three weeks, and was a constant joy to Thorpe.
His enthusiasms were so whole-souled; his delight so perpetual; his interest so fresh! The most trivial expedients of woods lore seemed to him wonderful.A dozen times a day he exclaimed in admiration or surprise over some bit of woodcraft practiced by Thorpe or one of the Indians.
"Do you mean to say you have lived here six weeks and only brought in what you could carry on your backs!" he cried.
"Sure," Thorpe replied.
"Harry, you're wonderful! I've got a whole canoe load, and imagined I was travelling light and roughing it.You beat Robinson Crusoe!
He had a whole ship to draw from."
"My man Friday helps me out," answered Thorpe, laughingly indicating Injin Charley.
Nearly a week passed before Wallace managed to kill a deer.The animals were plenty enough; but the young man's volatile and eager attention stole his patience.And what few running shots offered, he missed, mainly because of buck fever.Finally, by a lucky chance, he broke a four-year-old's neck, dropping him in his tracks.The hunter was delighted.He insisted on doing everything for himself--cruel hard work it was too--including the toting and skinning.Even the tanning he had a share in.At first he wanted the hide cured, "with the hair on." Injin Charley explained that the fur would drop out.It was the wrong season of the year for pelts.
"Then we'll have buckskin and I'll get a buckskin shirt out of it," suggested Wallace.
Injin Charley agreed.One day Wallace returned from fishing in the pool to find that the Indian had cut out the garment, and was already sewing it together.
"Oh!" he cried, a little disappointed, "I wanted to see it done!"Injin Charley merely grunted.To make a buckskin shirt requires the hides of three deer.Charley had supplied the other two, and wished to keep the young man from finding it out.
Wallace assumed the woods life as a man would assume an unaccustomed garment.It sat him well, and he learned fast, but he was always conscious of it.He liked to wear moccasins, and a deer knife; he liked to cook his own supper, or pluck the fragrant hemlock browse for his pillow.Always he seemed to be trying to realize and to savor fully the charm, the picturesqueness, the romance of all that he was doing and seeing.To Thorpe these things were a part of everyday life; matters of expedient or necessity.He enjoyed them, but subconsciously, as one enjoys an environment.Wallace trailed the cloak of his glories in frank admiration of their splendor.
This double point of view brought the men very close together.
Thorpe liked the boy because he was open-hearted, free from affectation, assumptive of no superiority,--in short, because he was direct and sincere, although in a manner totally different from Thorpe's own directness and sincerity.Wallace, on his part, adored in Thorpe the free, open-air life, the adventurous quality, the quiet hidden power, the resourcefulness and self-sufficiency of the pioneer.He was too young as yet to go behind the picturesque or romantic; so he never thought to inquire of himself what Thorpe did there in the wilderness, or indeed if he did anything at all.
