Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog Part 7

"Why, that Gaut Gurley has moved with his family into the settlement. And that is not all; but the rest of it, which relates to a lately-formed intimacy between you and Gaut's daughter, I presume is mere guess-work."

Mrs. Elwood turned a searching glance to the face of her son, and waited to hear his reply to the last remarks, but he was silent; and the last gleam of hope, which had for the moment lighted up the mother's countenance, faded like a moon-beam on the edge of an eclipsing cloud; and, after a long pause and silence which no one interrupted, she slowly and sadly said:

"When I consented to leave the comforts and social blessings to which I had been accustomed, and come into this lone wilderness, with its well-known hards.h.i.+ps and privations, my great and indeed only motive was, to see my family placed beyond the temptations of the city, and especially beyond the fatal, and to me always mysterious, influence of that wicked and dangerous man, Gaut Gurley. And with this object I came cheerfully, gladly. And when I reached this place, fondly hoping and believing we had escaped that man, and were forever secure from his wiles, I became happy,--happier than since I left my native hills in New-Hamps.h.i.+re. It soon became to _me_, lone and dreary as it might appear to others,--it soon became to _me_, in my fancied security from the evils we had fled, a second Paradise. But to me it is a Paradise no longer; the Serpent has found his way into our Eden; and, not content with having beguiled and ruined one, must now have the other so entangled in the toils that both will be kept in his power."

"You are going a great ways to borrow trouble, it appears to me, Alice,"

remarked Elwood, after a pause.

"It certainly seems so to me, also, mother," said Claud. "You cannot know but Gurley comes here with as honest purposes as father. But, were it otherwise, the daughter should not be held responsible for the faults of the father, nor, without good reason, be accused of favoring any sinister designs he may entertain."

"Claud takes a just view of the case, on both points, I presume," rejoined Mr. Elwood. "As to Gurley, I know not how, or why, he came here; nor do I wish or expect to have any thing to do with him. And as to Claud, I trust he knows enough to take care of himself."

"You have both evaded the spirit of my remarks," responded Mrs. Elwood.

"When I speak of Gaut Gurley's motives and designs, you must know I judge from his past conduct. Have either of you as safe grounds of judging him?

And when I allude to his daughter, I do so with no thought of holding her amenable for the faults of her father, or even of a.s.suming the ground that she has inherited any of his objectionable traits of character. I intend nothing of the kind, for I know nothing of her. But I do say, that, whenever she marries, she becomes the connecting link between her husband and her father, the chain extending both ways, so as to bind their respective families together, and give one the power and means of evil which could in no other way be obtained. In view of all these circ.u.mstances, then, I feel that a calamity is in store for us. G.o.d grant that my fears and forebodings may prove groundless."

The husband and son were saved the difficult and embarra.s.sing task of replying, by the arrival of Philips, who, in his free and easy manner, entered and took a seat with the family.

"I came, gentlefolks," said the hunter, after a few commonplace remarks had been exchanged,--"I came to see if you know what a 'bee' means?"

"A bee? what, honey-bees?" asked Mr. Elwood, in surprise at the oddness of the question.

"No, not a honey-bee, exactly, or a humble-bee, but a sort of work-meeting of men or women, to help a neighbor to husk his corn, for instance, build him a log house, or do off some other job for him in a day, which alone would take him perhaps weeks. These turn-outs we new settlers call 'bees.'

Nothing is more common than for a man to get up a bee to knock off at once a pressing job he wants done. And, when a new-comer appears to be delicate about moving in the matter, the neighbors sometimes volunteer, and get up a bee for him, among themselves."

"I may have heard of the custom; but why do you say you came to ask me if I know any thing about it?"

"Well, I kinder thought I would. You have a pretty stiff-looking burnt piece here to be logged off soon, have you not?"

"Why, yes."

"And it would be a hard and heavy month's job for you and the young man to do it, would it not?"

"The best part of a month, perhaps; but I was intending to go at it in season, that we might get it all cleared and sown by the middle of September; which must be done, if I join you and the rest of the usual company in the fall trapping and hunting expedition."

"Of course you will join us. It is our main and almost only chance here of getting any money."

"So I have always understood, and therefore made up my mind to go into it, if I can get ready. I have been down the river to-day and engaged my seed wheat. To-morrow I thought of going abroad again, to try to engage some help for clearing the piece."

"Well, you need not go a rod for that purpose."

"Why not?"

"Because we have got up a bee for you in the settlement, large enough, we think, to log off your whole piece in a day."

"Indeed! Who has been so kind as to start such a project?"

"Several of us: Codman, that you may have seen, or at least heard of, as the best trapper in the settlement, took upon himself to enlist those round the southerly end of the lake, where he lives; and I have arranged matters a little in this section and on the river below. But, in justice, I should name, as the man who has taken the most interest in the movement, the new settler who has this summer come into the parts, and made his pitch over on the Magalloway. His name is Gurley."

A dead silence of several minutes ensued, during which Mrs. Elwood looked sadly and meaningly from the husband to the son, both of whose countenances seemed to fall and shrink before her significant glances.

"Well," at length resumed the hunter, perceiving no response was to be made to his last remark, "seeing we had got all arranged and ready, I came to notify you, so that you should not be taken by surprise. We propose to be on the ground, men and oxen, early day after to-morrow. There will be fifteen or twenty of us, perhaps, with five or six yoke of oxen, and like enough a stiff horse or two."

"But how can I provision such a company on so short notice?"

"No trouble about that. You have salt pork?"

"A good supply."

"Corn meal?"

"Yes; and wheat flour, with fine new potatoes."

"All right. I will take care of the rest. I will take the young man, here, into my largest canoe, to-morrow morning, if he be so disposed, and we will go up the lake, perhaps into the upper lake, and it will be a strange case if we don't return at night with fish, and I think flesh, enough to victual the company; and, in the mean time, my women will come up and be on hand to-morrow and next day, to help Mrs. Elwood do the baking and cooking."

The friendly movement of the neighbors, thus announced, was not, of course, to be opposed or questioned by those for whose benefit it was intended, any further than Mr. Elwood had done in relation to his ability to entertain the company so well as their kindness deserved. Mr. Elwood and his son, indeed, who had been dreading the hard job of clearing off their land, were greatly gratified at the unexpected kindness. And even Mrs. Elwood, pained and annoyed as she was by the part taken by Gaut Gurley, whose only motive she believed was to gain some advantage for meditated evil, entered cheerfully into the affair, and joined her husband in handsome expressions of acknowledgment to the hunter, and a.s.surances of doing their best to provide properly for the company. The matter was therefore considered as settled; and the hunter departed, to call, as he had proposed, early the next morning for Claud, for an excursion up the lake, to procure fresh provisions for the coming occasion.

The family were early astir the next morning, intent on their respective duties in preparation for the appointed logging bee. They had scarcely dispatched their breakfast, before the hunter, as he had promised, called for Claud; when the two departed together, with their guns and fis.h.i.+ng gear, for the lake, whither we propose to accompany them.

"Well, now, let us settle the order of the day," said Phillips, after they had reached the landing and deposited their luggage in the canoe selected for the purpose.

"I am a companion of the voyage, to-day, and, as you know, but a learner in these sports," responded Claud. "You have but to name your plan."

"Well, my plan is this: to steer across and get up the lake to the inlet and rapids which connect this to the next upper lake, called by the Indians the Molechunk-a-munk; up these rapids into that lake, where we will take a row of a few hours, and home again by nightfall. In these rapids, going or returning, we may safely count, at this season, on a plenty of trout; and, on the borders of the lake beyond, I know of several favorite haunts of the deer, one of which I propose to take into the canoe as ballast to steady it for running the rapids, on our way back."

"What is the whole distance?"

"Four or five miles of this lake, as many of the river or rapids, and as far into the upper lake as we please."

"You are laying out largely for one day, are you not?"

"No, 'tis nothing. You see, I have brought round for our use my best birch bark canoe. I have rowed her fifty miles a day round the lakes many a time.

We shall bound over the lake in almost no time, and the rapids, which are the only drawback, can soon be surmounted, by oar or setting-pole, or, what may be cheapest, carrying the canoe round those most difficult of pa.s.sage.

The boat does not weigh an hundred. I could travel with it a mile on my head, as fast as you would wish to walk without a pound of luggage. So, in with you, and I'll show you how it is done."

Accordingly they launched forth in their primitive craft, which, as before intimated, was the once noted birch bark canoe built by the hunter agreeably to the exact rules of Indian art. Few, who have never seen and observed the process of constructing this canoe, which, for thousands of years before the advent of the white man, was the only craft used by the aborigines in navigating the interior waters, have any idea how, from such seemingly fragile materials, and with no other tools than a hatchet, knife, and perhaps a bone needle, the Indian can construct a canoe so extremely light and at the same time so tough and durable. In building his canoe, which is one of the greatest efforts of his mechanical skill, the Indian goes to work systematically. He first peels his bark from a middle-sized birch tree, and cuts it in strips five or six inches wide, and twelve, fifteen, or twenty feet long, according to the length and size of the designed canoe. He then dries them thoroughly in the sun, after which he nicely sc.r.a.pes and smooths off the outside. He next proceeds to soak these strips, which are thus made to go through a sort of tanning process, to render them tough and pliable, as well as to obviate their liability to crack by exposure to the sun. After the materials are thus prepared, he smooths off a level piece of ground, and drives around the outside a line of strong stakes, so that the s.p.a.ce within shall describe the exact form of the boat in contemplation. Inside of these stakes he places and braces up the wet and pliable pieces of bark, beginning at the bottom and building up and bending into form the sides and ends, till the structure has attained the required height. In this situation it is left till it is again thoroughly dried and all the pieces become fixed in shape. A light inside framework is then constructed, resembling the skeleton of a fish, and of dimensions to fit the canoe already put in form in the manner we have described. The pieces of cured material are then numbered and taken down; when the architect, beginning at the bottom, lapping and sewing together the different pieces, proceeds patiently in his work, till the sides are built, the ends closed nicely up, and each piece lashed firmly to the framework, which, though of surprising lightness, is made to serve as keel, knees, and ribs of the boat. Every seam and crevice is then filled with melted pitch. The Indian then has his canoe fit for use; and he may well boast of a boat, which, for combined strength and lightness, and especially for capacity of burden, no art of the s.h.i.+pbuilder has ever been able to surpa.s.s, and which, if it has not already, might serve for a model of the best lifeboat ever constructed, in these days of boasted perfection in marine arts and improvements.

Bounding over the smooth waters like a seabird half on wing, our voyagers soon found themselves on the northerly side of the lake; when, rounding a point, they began to skirt the easterly sh.o.r.e of the bay that makes up to the inlet, at a more leisurely pace, for the purpose of being on the lookout for deer, which might be standing in the edge of the water round the coves, to cool themselves and keep off the flies. Not seeing any signs of game, however, they steered out so as to clear the various little capes or woody points of land inclosing the numerous coves scattered along the indented sh.o.r.e, and struck a line for the great inlet at the head of the lake, which they now soon reached, and commenced rowing against the at first gentle and then rapid current, which here pours down from, the upper lakes, through the rocky and picturesque defiles, in the form of a magnificent river, rivalling in its size the midway portions of the Connecticut or Hudson.

"Now, young man," said the hunter, laying aside his paddle and taking up the strong, elastic setting-pole he had provided for the occasion, "now you must look out for your balance. The river, to be sure, is quite low, and the current, of course, at its feeblest point; but we shall find places enough within the next mile where the canoe, to go up at all, must go up like the jump of a catamount. So, down in the bottom of the boat, on your braced knees, with your haunches on your heels, and leave all to me."

"What! do you expect to force the canoe up rapids like these?" asked Claud, in surprise, as he cast his eye over the long reach of eddying, tumbling waters, that looked like a lessening sheet of foam as it lay stretched upward in the distant perspective.

"I expect to try," coolly replied the hunter; "and, if you lay asleep in the bottom of the canoe, I should expect to succeed. And, as it is, if you can keep cool and obey orders, we will see what can be done."

Claud implicitly obeyed the directions of the hunter, without much faith, however, in the success of his bold attempt. But he soon perceived he had underrated the skill and strength of arm which had been relied on to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat. Standing upright and slightly bracing in the bottom of his canoe, the hunter first marked out with his eye his course through a given reach of the rock-broken and foaming waters above; then, nicely calculating the resisting force of each rapid to be overcome, and the required impetus, and the direction to be given to his canoe to effect it, he sharply bid Claud be on his guard, and sent the light craft like an arrow into the boiling eddies before him. And now, by sudden and powerful shoves, he was seen shooting obliquely up one rapid; tacking with the quickness of light, and darting off zigzag among the rocks and eddies towards another, which was in turn surmounted; while the boat was forced, surging and bounding forward, with increasing impetus, now up and now athwart the rus.h.i.+ng currents, till he had gained a resting-place in the still water of some sheltering boulder in the stream, when he would mark off, with a rapid glance, another reach of falls, and shoot in among them as before. Thus, with the quick tacks and turns and sudden leaps of the ascending salmon, and almost with the celerity, he made his way up the long succession of rapids, until the last of the series was overcome, and he found himself safely emerging into the smooth waters of the beautiful lakelet or pond which divides, in the upper portion of its course, this remarkable stream. Another row of a mile or so now brought the voyagers where the water again took the form of a swift river, tumbling and foaming over the rocks, in the last series of rapids to be overcome. These also were surmounted in the same manner and with the same success as the former.

But this part of the voyage was marked with an unexpected adventure, and one which seemed destined to lead to the operation of new and singular moral agencies, both in the near and more distant future, having an important bearing on the fate and fortunes of young Elwood. They had reached the last and most difficult of all the rapids yet encountered, and were resting, preparatory to the antic.i.p.ated struggle, in a smooth piece of water under the lee of a huge rock, on either side of which the divided stream rushed in two foam-covered torrents, with the force and swiftness of a mill-race; when they were startled by the shrill exclamations of a female voice, in tones indicative of surprise and alarm. The sounds, which came from some unseen point not far above them in the stream, were evidently drawing near at a rapid rate. Presently a small Indian canoe, with a single female occupant, whose youth and beauty, even in the distance, were apparent, shot swiftly into view, and came tossing and whirling down the stream, unguided, and wholly at the mercy of the crooked and raging currents along which it was borne with the speed of the wind. The imperilled maiden uttered a cry of joy at the appearance of our voyagers, and held up the handle of a broken oar, to indicate to them at once the cause of her fearful dilemma and need of a.s.sistance.