Again came the figure of that grim, kindly, strong old pioneer, with the gray-blue eyes and his voice was saying: "Jest when things looks about as black as they can look, if ye hold steady, keep cool and kind, something sure happens to make it all easy. There's always a way and the stout heart will find it."
What way was there for him? He would die of hunger and cold before Quonab could find him, and again came the spectre of fear. If only he could devise some way of letting his comrade know. He shouted once or twice, in the faint hope that the still air might carry the sound, but the silent wood was silent when he ceased.
Then one of his talks with Quonab came to mind. He remembered how the Indian, as a little papoose, had been lost for three days. Though, then but ten years old, he had built a smoke fire that brought him help. Yes, that was the Indian way; two smokes means "I am lost"; "double for trouble."
Fired by this new hope, Rolf crawled a little apart from his camp and built a bright fire, then smothered it with rotten wood and green leaves. The column of smoke it sent up was densely white and towered above the trees.
Then painfully he hobbled and crawled to a place one hundred yards away, and made another smoke. Now all he could do was wait.
A fat pigeon, strayed from its dock, sat on a bough above his camp, in a way to tempt Providence. Rolf drew a blunt arrow to the head and speedily had the pigeon in hand for some future meal.
As he prepared it, he noticed that its crop was crammed with the winged seed of the slippery elm, so he put them all back again into the body when it was cleaned, knowing well that they are a delicious food and in this case would furnish a welcome variant to the bird itself.
An hour crawled by. Rolf had to go out to the far fire, for it was nearly dead. Instinctively he sought a stout stick to help him; then remembered how Hoag had managed with one leg and two crutches. "Ho!" he exclaimed. "That is the answer—this is the 'way."'
Now his attention was fixed on all the possible crutches. The trees seemed full of them, but all at impossible heights. It was long before he found one that he could cut with his knife. Certainly he was an hour working at it; then he heard a sound that made his blood jump.
From far away in the north it came, faint but reaching;
"Ye-hoo-o."
Rolf dropped his knife and listened with the instinctively open mouth that takes all pressure from the eardrums and makes them keen. It came again: "Ye-hoo-o." No mistake now, and Rolf sent the ringing answer back:
"Ye-hoo-o, ye-hoo-o."
In ten minutes there was a sharp "yap, yap," and Skookum bounded out of the woods to leap and bark around Rolf, as though he knew all about it; while a few minutes later, came Quonab striding.
"Ho, boy," he said, with a quiet smile, and took Rolf's hand. "Ugh! That was good," and he nodded to the smoke fire. "I knew you were in trouble."
"Yes," and Rolf pointed to the swollen ankle.
The Indian picked up the lad in his arms and carried him back to the little camp. Then, from his light pack, he took bread and tea and made a meal for both. And, as they ate, each heard the other's tale.
"I was troubled when you did not come back last night, for you had no food or blanket. I did not sleep. At dawn I went to the hill, where I pray, and looked away southeast where you went in the canoe. I saw nothing. Then I went to a higher hill, where I could see the northeast, and even while I watched, I saw the two smokes, so I knew my son was alive."
"You mean to tell me I am northeast of camp?"
"About four miles. I did not come very quickly, because I had to go for the canoe and travel here.
"How do you mean by canoe?" said Rolf, in surprise.
"You are only half a mile from Jesup River," was the reply. "I soon bring you home."
It was incredible at first, but easy of proof. With the hatchet they made a couple of serviceable crutches and set out together.
In twenty minutes they were afloat in the canoe; in an hour they were safely home again.
And Rolf pondered it not a little. At the very moment of blackest despair, the way had opened, and it had been so simple, so natural, so effectual. Surely, as long as he lived, he would remember it. "There is always a way, and the stout heart will find it."
Chapter 50.
Marketing the Fur
If Rolf had been at home with his mother, she would have rubbed his black and swollen ankle with goose grease. The medical man at Stamford would have rubbed it with a carefully prepared and secret ointment. His Indian friend sang a little crooning song and rubbed it with deer's fat. All different, and all good, because each did something to reassure the patient, to prove that big things were doing on his behalf, and each helped the process of nature by frequent massage.
Three times a day, Quonab rubbed that blackened ankle. The grease saved the skin from injury, and in a week Rolf had thrown his crutches away.
The month of May was nearly gone; June was at hand; that is, the spring was over.
In all ages, man has had the impulse, if not the habit, of spring migration. Yielding to it he either migrated or made some radical change in his life. Most of the Adirondack men who trapped in the winter sought work on the log drives in spring; some who had families and a permanent home set about planting potatoes and plying the fish nets. Rolf and Quonab having neither way open, yet feeling the impulse, decided to go out to Warren's with the fur.
Quonab wanted tobacco—and a change.
Rolf wanted a rifle, and to see the Van Trumpers—and a change.
So June 1st saw them all aboard, with Quonab steering at the stern, and Skookum bow-wowing at the bow, bound for the great centre of Warren's settlement—one store and three houses, very wide apart.
There was a noble flush of water in the streams, and, thanks to their axe work in September, they passed down Jesup's River without a pause, and camped on the Hudson that night, fully twenty-five miles from home.
Long, stringing flocks of pigeons going north were the most numerous forms of life. But a porcupine on the bank and a bear in the water aroused Skookum to a pitch of frightful enthusiasm and vaulting ambition that he was forced to restrain.
On the evening of the third day they landed at Warren's and found a hearty welcome from the trader, who left a group of loafers and came forward:
"Good day to ye, boy. My, how ye have growed."
So he had. Neither Rolf nor Quonab had remarked it, but now they were much of the same height. "Wall, an' how'd ye make out with yer hunt?—Ah, that's fine!" as each of them dropped a fur pack on the counter. "Wall, this is fine; we must have a drink on the head of it," and the trader was somewhat nonplussed when both the trappers refused. He was disappointed, too, for that refusal meant that they would get much better prices for their fun But he concealed his chagrin and rattled on: "I reckon I'll sell you the finest rifle in the country this time," and he knew by Rolf's face that there was business to do in that line.
Now came the listing of the fur, and naturally the bargaining was between the shrewd Yankee boy and the trader. The Indian stood shyly aside, but he did not fail to help with significant grunts and glances.
"There, now," said Warren, as the row of martens were laid out side by side, "thirty martens—a leetle pale—worth three dollars and fifty cents each, or, to be generous, we'll say four dollars." Rolf glanced at Quonab, who, unseen by the trader shook his head, held his right hand out, open hollow up, then raised it with a jerk for two inches.
Quickly Rolf caught the idea and said; "No, I don't reckon them pale. I call them prime dark, every one of them." Quonab spread his hand with all five fingers pointed up, and Rolf continued, "They are worth five dollars each, if they're worth a copper."