file which includes the original illustrations.
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TWO LITTLE SAVAGES

Being the ADVENTURES of Two BOYS Who Lived as INDIANS and What They
LEARNED

With Over Three Hundred Drawings

Written & Illustrated by

ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

Author of _Wild Animals I have Known_, _Lives of the Hunted_,
_Biography of a Grizzly_, _Trail of the Sandhill Stag_, etcetera,
& Naturalist to the Government of Manitoba.

1917







Preface


Because I have known the torment of thirst I would
dig a well where others may drink.

E.T.S.



In this Book the designs for Title-page, Jackets, and general make-up
were done by Grace Gallatin Seton.




The Chapters

Part I

Glenyan & Yan


I.     Glimmerings
II.    Spring
III.   His Adjoining Brothers
IV.    The Book
V.     The Collarless Stranger
VI.    Glenyan
VII    The Shanty
VIII   The Beginnings of Woodlore
IX     Tracks
X.     Biddy's Contribution
XI.    Lung Balm
XII.   A Crisis
XIII.  The Lynx
XIV.   Froth




The Chapters

Part II

Sanger & Sam


I.      The New Home
II.     Sam
III.    The Wigwam
IV.     The Sanger Witch
V.      Caleb
VI.     The Making of the Teepee
VII.    The Calm Evening
VIII.   The Sacred Fire
IX.     The Bows and Arrows
X.      The Dam
XI.     Yan and the Witch
XII.    Dinner with the Witch
XIII.   The Hostile Spy
XIV.    The Quarrel
XV.     The Peace of Minnie




The Chapters

Part III

In the Woods


I.      Really in the Woods
II.     The First Night and Morning
III.    A Crippled Warrior and the Mud-Albums
IV.     A "Massacree" of Palefaces
V.      The Deer Hunt
VI.     War Bonnet, Teepee and Coups
VII.    Campercraft
VIII.   The Indian Drum
IX.     The Cat and the Skunk
X.      The Adventures of a Squirrel family
XI.     How to See the Woodfolk
XII.    Indian Signs and Getting Lost
XIII.   Tanning Skins and Making Moccasins
XIV.    Caleb's Philosophy
XV.     A Visit from Raften
XVI.    How Yan Knew the Ducks Afar
XVII.   Sam's Woodcraft Exploit
XVIII.  The Owls and the Night-School
XIX.    The Trial of Grit
XX.     The White Revolver
XXI.    The Triumph of Guy
XXII.   The Coon Hunt
XXIII.  The Banshee's Wail and the Huge Night Prowler
XXIV.   Hawkeye Claims Another Grand Coup
XXV.    The Three-fingered Tramp
XXVI.   Winning Back the farm
XXVII.  The Rival Tribe
XXVIII. White Man's Woodcraft
XXIX.   The Long Swamp
XXX.    A New Kind of Coon
XXXI.   On the Old Camp Ground
XXXII.  The New War Chief



List of Full Pages

Part I


 1. "Gazing spellbound in that window"
 2. "He already knew the Downy Woodpecker"
 3. "Yan's Toilet"
 4. "The Coon Track"
 5. "There in his dear cabin were three tramps"
 6. "It surely was a Lynx"

Part II

 7. "The wigwam was a failure"
 8. "Get out o' this now, or I'll boot ye"
 9. "Pattern for Teepee"

10. "Pattern of Thunder Bull's Teepee and of Black
       Bull's Teepee"
11. "'Clicker-a-clicker!' he shrieked ... and down like
       a dart"
12. "Rubbing-sticks for fire-making"
13. "The Archery Outfit"
14. "The dam was a great success"
15. "Ugh! Heap sassy"
16. "There stood Raften, spectator of the whole affair"




Part III


17. "If ye kill any Song-birds, I'll use the rawhoide
     on ye"
18. "Where's the axe?"
19. "He soon appeared, waving a branch"
20. "The War Bonnet"
21. "The old Cat raged and tore"
22. "Indian Signs"
23. "The Two Smokes"
24. "The Fish and River Ducks"
25. "The Sea Ducks"
26. "Owl-stuffing plate"
27. "Guy gave a leap of terror and fell"
28. "Well, sonny, cookin' dinner?"
29. "He nervously fired and missed"




I

Glimmerings


Yan was much like other twelve-year-old boys in having a keen interest
in Indians and in wild life, but he differed from most in this, that
he never got over it. Indeed, as he grew older, he found a yet keener
pleasure in storing up the little bits of woodcraft and Indian lore
that pleased him as a boy.

His father was in poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined
tastes, but indolent--a failure in business, easy with the world and
stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's
wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere
with the boy's education, he forbade them altogether.

There was certainly no reason to accuse Yan of neglecting school. He
was the head boy of his class, although there were many in it older
than himself. He was fond of books in general, but those that dealt
with Natural Science and Indian craft were very close to his heart.
Not that he had many--there were very few in those days, and the
Public Library had but a poor representation of these. "Lloyd's
Scandinavian Sports," "Gray's Botany" and one or two Fenimore Cooper
novels, these were all, and Yan was devoted to them. He was a timid,
obedient boy in most things, but the unwise command to give up what
was his nature merely made him a disobedient boy--turned a good boy
into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey
openly, but he used to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields
and woods, and at each new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite
thrill of mingled pleasure and pain--the pain because he had no name
for it or means of learning its nature.

The intense interest in animals was his master passion, and thanks to
this, his course to and from school was a very crooked one, involving
many crossings of the street, because thereby he could pass first a
saloon in whose window was a champagne advertising chromo that
portrayed two Terriers chasing a Rat; next, directly opposite this,
was a tobacconist's, in the window of which was a beautiful effigy of
an Elephant, laden with tobacco. By going a little farther out of his
way, there was a game store where he might see some Ducks, and was
sure, at least, of a stuffed Deer's head; and beyond that was a
furrier shop, with an astonishing stuffed Bear. At another point he
could see a livery stable Dog that was said to have killed a Coon, and
at yet another place on Jervie Street was a cottage with a high
veranda, under which, he was told, a chained Bear had once been kept.
He never saw the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found
pleasure in passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand
streets, according to a schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed
years ago and could still be smelled on damp nights. He always
stopped, if passing near on a wet night, and sniffed and enjoyed that
Skunk smell. The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a leakage of
sewer gas could never rob him of the pleasure he originally found in
it.

[Illustration: "Gazing spellbound in that window"]

Yan had no good excuse for these weaknesses, and he blushed for shame
when his elder brother talked "common sense" to him about his follies.
He only knew that such things fascinated him.

But the crowning glory was a taxidermist's shop kept on Main Street by
a man named Sander. Yan spent, all told, many weeks gazing spellbound,
with his nose flat white against that window. It contained some Fox
and Cat heads grinning ferociously, and about fifty birds beautifully
displayed. Nature might have got some valuable hints in that window
on showing plumage to the very best advantage. Each bird seemed more
wonderful than the last.

There were perhaps fifty of them on view, and of these, twelve had
labels, as they had formed part of an exhibit at the Annual County
Fair. These labels were precious truths to him, and the birds:

Osprey                    Partridge or Ruffed Grouse
Kingfisher                Bittern
Bluejay                   Highholder
Rosebreasted Grosbeak     Sawwhet Owl
Woodthrush                Oriole
Scarlet Tanager           * * * * * * *

were, with their names, deeply impressed on his memory and added to
his woodlore, though not altogether without a mixture of error. For
the alleged Woodthrush was not a Woodthrush at all, but turned out
to be a Hermit Thrush. The last bird of the list was a long-tailed,
brownish bird with white breast. The label was placed so that Yan
could not read it from outside, and one of his daily occupations was
to see if the label had been turned so that he could read it. But it
never was, so he never learned the bird's name.

After passing this for a year or more, he formed a desperate plan. It
was nothing less than to _go inside_. It took him some months to
screw up courage, for he was shy and timid, but oh! he was so hungry
for it. Most likely if he had gone in openly and asked leave, he
would have been allowed to see everything; but he dared not. His home
training was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious
of the small birds in the window--a Sawwhet Owl then grit his teeth
and walked in. How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang! Then
there succeeded a still more appalling silence, then a step and the
great man himself came.

"How--how--how much is that Owl?"

"Two dollars."

Yan's courage broke down now. He fled. If he had been told ten cents,
it would have been utterly beyond reach. He scarcely heard what the
man said. He hurried out with a vague feeling that he had been in
heaven but was not good enough to stay there. He saw nothing of the
wonderful things around him.




II

Spring


Yan, though not strong, revelled in deeds of brawn. He would rather
have been Samson than Moses--Hercules than Apollo. All his tastes
inclined him to wild life. Each year when the spring came, he felt the
inborn impulse to up and away. He was stirred through and through when
the first Crow, in early March, came barking over-head. But it fairly
boiled in his blood when the Wild Geese, in long, double, arrow-headed
procession, went clanging northward. He longed to go with them.
Whenever a new bird or beast appeared, he had a singular prickling
feeling up his spine and his back as though he had a mane that was
standing up. This feeling strengthened with his strength.

All of his schoolmates used to say that they "liked" the spring, some
of the girls would even say that they "dearly loved" the spring, but
they could not understand the madness that blazed in Yan's eyes when
springtime really came--the flush of cheek--the shortening breath--the
restless craving for action--the chafing with flashes of rebellion at
school restraints--the overflow of nervous energy--the bloodthirst
in his blood--the hankering to run--to run to the north, when the
springtime tokens bugled to his every sense.

Then the wind and sky and ground were full of thrill. There was
clamour everywhere, but never a word. There was stirring within and
without. There was incentive in the yelping of the Wild Geese; but it
was only tumult, for he could not understand why he was so stirred.
There were voices that he could not hear--messages that he could not
read; all was confusion of tongues. He longed only to get away.

"If only I could get away. If--if--Oh, God!" he stammered in torment
of inexpression, and then would gasp and fling himself down on some
bank, and bite the twigs that chanced within reach and tremble and
wonder at himself.

Only one thing kept him from some mad and suicidal move--from joining
some roving Indian band up north, or gypsies nearer--and that was the
strong hand at home.




III

His Adjoining Brothers


Yan had many brothers, but only those next him in age were important
in his life. Rad was two years older--a strong boy, who prided himself
on his "common sense." Though so much older, he was Yan's inferior
at school. He resented this, and delighted in showing his muscular
superiority at all opportunities. He was inclined to be religious,
and was strictly proper in his life and speech. He never was known to
smoke a cigarette, tell a lie, or say "gosh" or "darn." He was plucky
and persevering, but he was cold and hard, without a human fiber or a
drop of red blood in his make-up. Even as a boy he bragged that he had
no enthusiasms, that he believed in common sense, that he called a
spade a spade, and would not use two words where one would do. His
intelligence was above the average, but he was so anxious to be
thought a person of rare sagacity and smartness, unswayed by emotion,
that nothing was too heartless for him to do if it seemed in line
with his assumed character. He was not especially selfish, and yet he
pretended to be so, simply that people should say of him significantly
and admiringly: "Isn't he keen? Doesn't he know how to take care of
himself?" What little human warmth there was in him died early, and he
succeeded only in making himself increasingly detested as he grew up.

His relations to Yan may be seen in one incident.

Yan had been crawling about under the house in the low wide cobwebby
space between the floor beams and the ground. The delightful sensation
of being on an exploring expedition led him farther (and ultimately to
a paternal thrashing for soiling his clothes), till he discovered a
hollow place near one side, where he could nearly stand upright. He
at once formed one of his schemes--to make a secret, or at least a
private, workroom here. He knew that if he were to ask permission
he would be refused, but if he and Rad together were to go it might
receive favourable consideration on account of Rad's self-asserted
reputation for common sense. For a wonder, Rad was impressed with the
scheme, but was quite sure that they had "better not go together to
ask Father." He "could manage that part better alone," and he did.

Then they set to work. The first thing was to deepen the hole from
three feet to six feet everywhere, and get rid of the earth by working
it back under the floor of the house. There were many days of labour
in this, and Yan stuck to it each day after returning from school.
There were always numerous reasons why Rad could not share in the
labour. When the ten by fourteen-foot hole was made, boards to line
and floor it were needed. Lumber was very cheap--inferior, second-hand
stuff was to be had for the asking--and Yan found and carried boards
enough to make the workroom. Rad was an able carpenter and now took
charge of the construction. They worked together evening after
evening, Yan discussing all manner of plans with warmth and
enthusiasm--what they would do in their workshop when finished--how
they might get a jig-saw in time and saw picture frames, so as to
make some money. Rad assented with grunts or an occasional Scripture
text--that was his way. Each day he told Yan what to go on with while
he was absent.

The walls were finished at length; a window placed in one side; a door
made and fitted with lock and key. What joy! Yan glowed with pleasure
and pride at the triumphant completion of his scheme. He swept up the
floor for the finishing ceremony and sat down on the bench for a grand
gloat, when Rad said abruptly:

"Going to lock up now." That sounded gratifyingly important. Yan
stepped outside. Rad locked the door, put the key in his pocket, then
turning, he said with cold, brutal emphasis:

"Now you keep out of my workshop from this on. _You_ have nothing
to do with it. It's mine. I got the permission to make it." All of
which he could prove, and did.

       *       *       *       *       *

Alner, the youngest, was eighteen months younger than Yan, and about
the same size, but the resemblance stopped there. His chief aim in
life was to be stylish. He once startled his mother by inserting into
his childish prayers the perfectly sincere request: "Please, God,
make me an awful swell, for Jesus sake." Vanity was his foible, and
laziness his sin.

He could be flattered into anything that did not involve effort. He
fairly ached to be famous. He was consuming with desire to be pointed
out for admiration as the great this, that or the other thing--it did
not matter to him what, as long as he could be pointed out. But he
never had the least idea of working for it. At school he was a sad
dunce. He was three grades below Yan and at the bottom of his grade.
They set out for school each day together, because that was a paternal
ruling; but they rarely reached there together. They had nothing in
common. Yan was full of warmth, enthusiasm, earnestness and energy,
but had a most passionate and ungovernable temper. Little put him in a
rage, but it was soon over, and then an equally violent reaction set
in, and he was always anxious to beg forgiveness and make friends
again. Alner was of lazy good temper and had a large sense of humour.
His interests were wholly in the playground. He had no sympathy with
Yan's Indian tastes--"Indians in nasty, shabby clothes. Bah! Horrid!"
he would scornfully say.

These, then, were his adjoining brothers.

What wonder that Yan was daily further from them.




IV

The Book


But the greatest event of Yan's then early life now took place. His
school readers told him about Wilson and Audubon, the first and last
American naturalists. Yan wondered why no other great prophet had
arisen. But one day the papers announced that at length he had
appeared. A work on the Birds of Canada, by ..., had come at last,
price one dollar.

Money never before seemed so precious, necessary and noble a thing.
"Oh! if I only had a dollar." He set to work to save and scrape. He
won marbles in game, swopped marbles for tops, tops for jack-knives as
the various games came around with strange and rigid periodicity. The
jack-knives in turn were converted into rabbits, the rabbits into cash
of small denominations. He carried wood for strange householders;
he scraped and scraped and saved the scrapings; and got, after some
months, as high as ninety cents. But there was a dread fatality
about that last dime. No one seemed to have any more odd jobs; his
commercial luck deserted him. He was burnt up with craving for that
book. None of his people took interest enough in him to advance the
cash even at the ruinous interest (two or three times cent per cent)
that he was willing to bind himself for. Six weeks passed before he
achieved that last dime, and he never felt conscience-clear about it
afterward.

He and Alner had to cut the kitchen wood. Each had his daily
allotment, as well as other chores. Yan's was always done faithfully,
but the other evaded his work in every way. He was a notorious little
fop. The paternal poverty did not permit his toilet extravagance to
soar above one paper collar per week, but in his pocket he carried a
piece of ink eraser with which he was careful to keep the paper collar
up to standard. Yan cared nothing about dress--indeed, was inclined to
be slovenly. So the eldest brother, meaning to turn Alner's weakness
to account, offered a prize of a twenty-five-cent necktie of the
winner's own choice to the one who did his chores best for a month.
For the first week Alner and Yan kept even, then Alner wearied, in
spite of the dazzling prize. The pace was too hot. Yan kept on his
usual way and was duly awarded the twenty-five cents to be spent on a
necktie. But in the store a bright thought came tempting him. Fifteen
cents was as much as any one should spend on a necktie--that's sure;
the other ten would get the book. And thus the last dime was added to
the pile. Then, bursting with joy and with the pride of a capitalist,
he went to the book-shop and asked for the coveted volume.

He was tense with long-pent feeling. He expected to have the
bookseller say that the price had gone up to one thousand dollars, and
that all were sold. But he did not. He turned silently, drew the book
out of a pile of them, hesitated and said, "Green or red cover?"

"Green," said Yan, not yet believing. The book-man looked inside, then
laid it down, saying in a cold, business tone, "Ninety cents."

"Ninety cents," gasped Yan. Oh! if only he had known the ways of
booksellers or the workings of cash discounts. For six weeks had
he been barred this happy land--had suffered starvation; he had
misappropriated funds, he had fractured his conscience and all to
raise that ten cents--that unnecessary dime.

He read that book reverentially all the way home. It did not give him
what he wanted, but that doubtless was his own fault. He pored over
it, studied it, loved it, never doubting that now he had the key to
all the wonders and mysteries of Nature. It was five years before
he fully found out that the text was the most worthless trash ever
foisted on a torpid public. Nevertheless, the book held some useful
things; first, a list of the bird names; second, some thirty vile
travesties of Audubon and Wilson's bird portraits.

These were the birds thus maligned:

Duck Hawk                     Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Sparrow Hawk                  Bobolink
White-headed Eagle            Meadow Lark
Great Horned Owl              Bluejay
Snowy Owl                     Ruffed Grouse
Red-headed Woodpecker         Great Blue Heron
Golden-winged Woodpecker      Bittern
Barn-swallow                  Wilson's Snipe
Whip-poor-will                Long-biller Curlew
Night Hawk                    Purple Gallinule
Belted Kingfisher             Canada Goose
Kingbird                      Wood Duck
Woodthrush                    Hooded Merganser
Catbird                       Double-crested Cormorant
White-bellied Nuthatch        Arctic Tern
Brown Creeper                 Great Northern Diver
Bohemian Chatterer            Stormy Petrel
Great Northern Shrike         Arctic Puffin
Shore Lark                    Black Guillemot

[Illustration: "He already knew the Downy Woodpecker"]


But badly as they were presented, the pictures were yet information,
and were entered in his memory as lasting accessions to his store of
truth about the Wild Things.

Of course, he already knew some few birds whose names are familiar
to every schoolboy: the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Wild Canary,
Woodpecker, Barn-swallow, Wren, Chickadee, Wild Pigeon, Humming-bird,
Pewee, so that his list was steadily increased.




V

The Collarless Stranger


  Oh, sympathy! the noblest gift of God to man.
  The greatest bond there is twixt man and man.
  The strongest link in any friendship chain.
  The single lasting hold in kinship's claim.
  The only incorrosive strand in marriage bonds.
  The blazing torch where genius lights her lamp.
  The ten times noble base of noblest love.
  More deep than love--more strong than hate--the biggest thing
  in all the universe--the law of laws.
  Grant but this greatest gift of God to man--this single link
  concatenating grant, and all the rest are worthless or comprised.

Each year the ancient springtime madness came more strongly on Yan.
Each year he was less inclined to resist it, and one glorious day of
late April in its twelfth return he had wandered northward along to a
little wood a couple of miles from the town. It was full of unnamed
flowers and voices and mysteries. Every tree and thicket had a
voice--a long ditch full of water had many that called to him.
"_Peep-peep-peep_," they seemed to say in invitation for him to
come and see. He crawled again and again to the ditch and watched
and waited. The loud whistle would sound only a few rods away,
"_Peep-peep-peep_," but ceased at each spot when he came
near--sometimes before him, sometimes behind, but never where he was.
He searched through a small pool with his hands, sifted out sticks and
leaves, but found nothing else. A farmer going by told him it was only
a "spring Peeper," whatever that was, "some kind of a critter in the
water."

Under a log not far away Yan found a little Lizard that tumbled out of
sight into a hole. It was the only living thing there, so he decided
that the "Peeper" must be a "Whistling Lizard." But he was determined
to see them when they were calling. How was it that the ponds all
around should be full of them calling to him and playing hide and seek
and yet defying his most careful search? The voices ceased as soon as
he came near, to be gradually renewed in the pools he had left. His
presence was a husher. He lay for a long time watching a pool, but
none of the voices began again in range of his eye. At length, after
realizing that they were avoiding him, he crawled to a very noisy pond
without showing himself, and nearer and yet nearer until he was within
three feet of a loud peeper in the floating grass. He located the spot
within a few inches and yet could see nothing. He was utterly baffled,
and lay there puzzling over it, when suddenly all the near Peepers
stopped, and Yan was startled by a footfall; and looking around, he
saw a man within a few feet, watching him.

Yan reddened--a stranger was always an enemy; he had a natural
aversion to all such, and stared awkwardly as though caught in crime.

The man, a curious looking middle-aged person, was in shabby clothes
and wore no collar. He had a tin box strapped on his bent shoulders,
and in his hands was a long-handled net. His features, smothered in a
grizzly beard, were very prominent and rugged. They gave evidence of
intellectual force, with some severity, but his gray-blue eyes had a
kindly look.

He had on a common, unbecoming, hard felt hat, and when he raised it
to admit the pleasant breeze Yan saw that the wearer had hair like his
own--a coarse, paleolithic mane, piled on his rugged brow, like a mass
of seaweed lodged on some storm-beaten rock.

"F'what are ye fynding, my lad?" said he in tones whose gentleness was
in no way obscured by a strong Scottish tang.

Still resenting somewhat the stranger's presence, Yan said:

"I'm not finding anything; I am only trying to see what that Whistling
Lizard is like."

The stranger's eyes twinkled. "Forty years ago Ah was laying by a pool
just as Ah seen ye this morning, looking and trying hard to read the
riddle of the spring Peeper. Ah lay there all day, aye, and mony
anither day, yes, it was nigh onto three years before Ah found it oot.
Ah'll be glad to save ye seeking as long as Ah did, if that's yer
mind. Ah'll show ye the Peeper."

Then he raked carefully among the leaves near the ditch, and soon
captured a tiny Frog, less than an inch long.

"Ther's your Whistling Lizard: he no a Lizard at all, but a Froggie.
Book men call him _Hyla pickeringii_, an' a gude Scotchman he'd
make, for ye see the St. Andrew's cross on his wee back. Ye see the
whistling ones in the water put on'y their beaks oot an' is hard to
see. Then they sinks to the bottom when ye come near. But you tak
this'n home and treat him well and ye'll see him blow out his throat
as big as himsel' an' whistle like a steam engine."

Yan thawed out now. He told about the Lizard he had seen.

"That wasna a Lizard; Ah niver see thim aboot here. It must a been
a two-striped _Spelerpes_. A _Spelerpes_ is nigh kin to a
Frog--a kind of dry-land tadpole, while a Lizard is only a Snake with
legs."

This was light from heaven. All Yan's distrust was gone. He warmed to
the stranger. He plied him with questions; he told of his getting the
Bird Book. Oh, how the stranger did snort at "that driveling trash."
Yan talked of his perplexities. He got a full hearing and intelligent
answers. His mystery of the black ground-bird with a brown mate was
resolved into the Common Towhee. The unknown wonderful voice in the
spring morning, sending out its "_cluck, cluck, cluck, clucker_,"
in the distant woods, the large gray Woodpecker that bored in some
high stub and flew in a blaze of gold, and the wonderful spotted bird
with red head and yellow wings and tail in the taxidermist's window,
were all resolved into one and the same--the Flicker or Golden-winged
Woodpecker. The Hang-nest and the Oriole became one. The unknown
poisonous-looking blue Hornet, that sat on the mud with palpitating
body, and the strange, invisible thing that made the mud-nests inside
old outbuildings and crammed them with crippled Spiders, were both
identified as the Mud-wasp or _Pelopæus_.

A black Butterfly flew over, and Yan learned that it was a Camberwell
Beauty, or, scientifically, a _Vanessa antiopa_, and that this
one must have hibernated to be seen so early in the spring, and yet
more, that this beautiful creature was the glorified spirit of the
common brown and black spiney Caterpillar.

The Wild Pigeons were flying high above them in great flocks as they
sat there, and Yan learned of their great nesting places in the far
South, and of their wonderful but exact migrations without regard to
anything but food; their northward migration to gather the winged nuts
of the Slippery Elm in Canada; their August flight to the rice-fields
of Carolina; their Mississippi Valley pilgrimage when the acorns and
beech-mast were falling ripe.

What a rich, full morning that was. Everything seemed to turn up for
them. As they walked over a piney hill, two large birds sprang from
the ground and whirred through the trees.

"Ruffed Grouse or 'patridge', as the farmers call them. There's a pair
lives nigh aboots here. They come on this bank for the Wintergreen
berries."

And Yan was quick to pull and taste them. He filled his pockets with
the aromatic plant--berries and all--and chewed it as he went. While
they walked, a faint, far drum-thump fell on their ears. "What's
that?" he exclaimed, ever on the alert. The stranger listened and
said:

"That's the bird ye ha' just seen; that's the Cock Partridge drumming
for his mate."

The Pewee of his early memories became the Phoebe of books. That day
his brookside singer became the Song-sparrow; the brown triller, the
Veery Thrush. The Trilliums, white and red, the Dogtooth Violet, the
Spring-beauty, the Trailing Arbutus--all for the first time got
names and became real friends, instead of elusive and beautiful, but
depressing mysteries.

The stranger warmed, too, and his rugged features glowed; he saw in
Yan one minded like himself, tormented with the knowledge-hunger, as
in youth he himself had been; and now it was a priceless privilege to
save the boy some of what he had suffered. His gratitude to Yan grew
fervid, and Yan--he took in every word; nothing that he heard was
forgotten. He was in a dream, for he had found at last the greatest
thing on earth--sympathy--broad, intelligent, comprehensive sympathy.

That spring morning was ever after like a new epoch in Yan's mind--not
his memory, that was a thing of the past--but in his mind, his living
present.

And the strongest, realest thing in it all was, not the rugged
stranger with his kind ways, not the new birds and plants, but the
smell of the Wintergreen.

Smell's appeal to the memory is far better, stronger, more real than
that of any other sense. The Indians know this; many of them, in time,
find out the smell that conjures up their happiest hours, and keep it
by them in the medicine bag. It is very real and dear to them--that
handful of Pine needles, that lump of Rat-musk, or that piece of
Spruce gum. It adds the crown of happy memory to their reveries.

And yet this belief is one of the first attacked by silly White-men,
who profess to enlighten the Red-man's darkness. They, in their
ignorance, denounce it as absurd, while men of science know its simple
truth.

Yan did not know that he had stumbled on a secret of the Indian
medicine bag. But ever afterward that wonderful day was called back to
him, conjured up by his "medicine," this simple, natural magic, the
smell of the Wintergreen.

He appreciated that morning more than he could tell, and yet he did a
characteristic foolish thing, that put him in a wrong light and left
him so in the stranger's mind.

It was past noon. They had long lingered; the Stranger spoke of the
many things he had at home; then at length said he must be going.
"Weel, good-by, laddie; Ah hope Ah'll see you again." He held out his
hand. Yan shook it warmly; but he was dazed with thinking and with
reaction; his diffidence and timidity were strong; he never rose to
the stranger's veiled offer. He let him go without even learning his
name or address.

When it was too late, Yan awoke to his blunder. He haunted all those
woods in hopes of chancing on him there again, but he never did.




VI

Glenyan


Oh! what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! How their trumpet clang
went thrilling in his heart, to smite there new and hidden chords that
stirred and sang response. Was there ever a nobler bird than that
great black-necked Swan, that sings not at his death, but in his flood
of life, a song of home and of peace--of stirring deeds and hunting
in far-off climes--of hungerings and food, and raging thirsts to meet
with cooling drink. A song of wind and marching, a song of bursting
green and grinding ice--of Arctic secrets and of hidden ways. A song
of a long black marsh, a low red sky, and a sun that never sets.

An Indian jailed for theft bore bravely through the winter, but when
the springtime brought the Gander-clang in the black night sky, he
started, fell, and had gone to his last, long, hunting home.

Who can tell why Jericho should fall at the trumpet blast?

Who can read or measure the power of the Honker-song?

Oh, what a song the Wild Geese sang that year! And yet, was it a new
song? No, the old, old song, but Yan heard it with new ears. He was
learning to read its message. He wandered on their trailless track, as
often as he could, northward, ever northward, up the river from the
town, and up, seeking the loneliest ways and days. The river turned to
the east, but a small stream ran into it from the north: up that Yan
went through thickening woods and walls that neared each other, on and
up until the walls closed to a crack, then widened out into a little
dale that was still full of original forest trees. Hemlock, Pine,
Birch and Elm of the largest size abounded and spread over the clear
brook a continuous shade. Fox vines trailed in the open places, the
rarest wild-flowers flourished, Red-squirrels chattered from the
trees. In the mud along the brook-side were tracks of Coon and Mink
and other strange fourfoots. And in the trees overhead, the Veery, the
Hermit-thrush, or even a Woodthrush sang his sweetly solemn strain, in
that golden twilight of the midday forest. Yan did not know them all
by name as yet, but he felt their vague charm and mystery. It seemed
such a far and lonely place, so unspoiled by man, that Yan persuaded
himself that surely he was the first human being to stand there, that
it was his by right of discovery, and so he claimed it and named it
after its discoverer--Glenyan.

This place became the central thought in his life. He went there at
all opportunities, but never dared to tell any one of his discovery.
He longed for a confidant sometimes, he hankered to meet the stranger
and take him there, and still he feared that the secret would get out.
This was his little kingdom; the Wild Geese had brought him here, as
the Seagulls had brought Columbus to a new world--where he could lead,
for brief spells, the woodland life that was his ideal. He was tender
enough to weep over the downfall of a lot of fine Elm trees in town,
when their field was sold for building purposes, and he used to suffer
a sort of hungry regret when old settlers told how plentiful the Deer
used to be. But now he had a relief from these sorrows, for surely
there was one place where the great trees should stand and grow as in
the bright bygone; where the Coon, the Mink and the Partridge should
live and flourish forever. No, indeed, no one else should know of it,
for if the secret got out, at least hosts of visitors would come and
Glenyan be defiled. No, better that the secret should "die with him,"
he said. What that meant he did not really know, but he had read the
phrase somewhere and he liked the sound of it. Possibly he would
reveal it on his deathbed.

Yes, that was the proper thing, and he pictured a harrowing scene of
weeping relatives around, himself as central figure, all ceasing their
wailing and gasping with wonder as he made known the mighty secret of
his life--delicious! it was almost worth dying for.

So he kept the place to himself and loved it more and more. He would
look out through the thick Hemlock tops, the blots of Basswood green
or the criss-cross Butternut leafage and say: "My own, my own." Or
down by some pool in the limpid stream he would sit and watch the
arrowy Shiners and say: "You are mine, all; you are mine. You shall
never be harmed or driven away."

A spring came from the hillside by a green lawn, and here Yan would
eat his sandwiches varied with nuts and berries that he did not like,
but ate only because he was a wildman, and would look lovingly up the
shady brookland stretches and down to the narrow entrance of the glen,
and say and think and feel. "This is mine, my own, my very own."




VII

The Shanty


He had none but the poorest of tools, but he set about building a
shanty. He was not a resourceful boy. His effort to win the book
had been an unusual one for him, as his instincts were not at all
commercial. When that matter came to the knowledge of the Home
Government, he was rebuked for doing "work unworthy of a gentleman's
son" and forbidden under frightful penalties "ever again to resort to
such degrading ways of raising money."

They gave him no money, so he was penniless. Most boys would have
possessed themselves somehow of a good axe and spade. He had neither.
An old plane blade, fastened to a stick with nails, was all the axe
and spade he had, yet with this he set to work and offset its poorness
as a tool by dogged persistency. First, he selected the quietest
spot near the spring--a bank hidden by a mass of foliage. He knew no
special reason for hiding it, beyond the love of secrecy. He had
read in some of his books "how the wily scouts led the way through a
pathless jungle, pulled aside a bough and there revealed a comfortable
dwelling that none without the secret could possibly have discovered,"
so it seemed very proper to make it a complete mystery--a sort of
secret panel in the enchanted castle--and so picture himself as the
wily scout leading his wondering companions to the shanty, though, of
course, he had not made up his mind to reveal his secret to any one.
He often wished he could have the advantage of Rad's strong arms and
efficacious tools; but the workshop incident was only one of many that
taught him to leave his brother out of all calculation.

Mother Earth is the best guardian of a secret, and Yan with his crude
spade began by digging a hole in the bank. The hard blue clay made the
work slow, but two holidays spent in steady labour resulted in a hole
seven feet wide and about four feet into the bank.

In this he set about building the shanty. Logs seven or eight feet
long must be got to the place--at least twenty-five or thirty would
be needed, and how to cut and handle them with his poor axe was a
question. Somehow, he never looked for a better axe. The half-formed
notion that the Indians had no better was sufficient support, and he
struggled away bravely, using whatever ready sized material he could
find. Each piece as he brought it was put into place. Some boys would
have gathered the logs first and built it all at once, but that
was not Yan's way; he was too eager to see the walls rise. He had
painfully and slowly gathered logs enough to raise the walls three
rounds, when the question of a door occurred to him. This, of course,
could not be cut through the logs in the ordinary way; that required
the best of tools. So he lifted out all the front logs except the
lowest, replacing them at the ends with stones and blocks to sustain
the sides. This gave him the sudden gain of two logs, and helped the
rest of the walls that much. The shanty was now about three feet high,
and no two logs in it were alike: some were much too long, most were
crooked and some were half rotten, for the simple reason that these
were the only ones he could cut. He had exhausted the logs in the
neighbourhood and was forced to go farther. Now he remembered seeing
one that might do, half a mile away on the home trail (they were
always "trails"; he never called them "roads" or "paths"). He went
after this, and to his great surprise and delight found that it was
one of a dozen old cedar posts that had been cut long before and
thrown aside as culls, or worthless. He could carry only one at a
time, so that to bring each one meant a journey of a mile, and the
post got woefully heavy each time before that mile was over. To
get those twelve logs he had twelve miles to walk. It took several
Saturdays, but he stuck doggedly to it. Twelve good logs completed
his shanty, making it five feet high and leaving three logs over for
rafters. These he laid flat across, dividing the spaces equally. Over
them he laid plenty of small sticks and branches till it was thickly
covered. Then he went down to a rank, grassy meadow and, with his
knife, cut hay for a couple of hours. This was spread thickly on the
roof, to be covered with strips of Elm bark then on top of all he
threw the clay dug from the bank, piling it well back, stamping on it,
and working it down at the edges. Finally, he threw rubbish and leaves
over it, so that it was confused with the general tangle.

Thus the roof was finished, but the whole of the front was open. He
dreaded the search for more logs, so tried a new plan. He found,
first, some sticks about six feet long and two or three inches
through. Not having an axe to sharpen and drive them, he dug pairs of
holes a foot deep, one at each end and another pair near the middle of
the front ground log.

Into each of these he put a pair of upright sticks, leading up to the
eave log, one inside and one outside of it, then packed the earth
around them in the holes. Next, he went to the brook-side and cut a
number of long green willow switches about half an inch thick at the
butt. These switches he twisted around the top of each pair of stakes
in a figure 8, placing them to hold the stake tight against the bottom
and top logs at the front.

Down by the spring he now dug a hole and worked water and clay
together into mortar, then with a trowel cut out of a shingle, and
mortar carried in an old bucket, he built a wall within the stakes,
using sticks laid along the outside and stones set in mud till the
front was closed up, except a small hole for a window and a large hole
for a door.

Now he set about finishing the inside. He gathered moss in the woods
and stuffed all the chinks in the upper parts, and those next the
ground he filled with stones and earth. Thus the shanty was finished;
but it lacked a door.

The opening was four feet high and two feet wide, so in the woodshed
at home he cut three boards, each eight inches wide and four feet
high, but he left at each end of one a long point. Doing this at home
gave him the advantage of a saw. Then with these and two shorter
boards, each two feet long and six inches wide, he sneaked out to
Glenyan, and there, with some nails and a stone for a hammer, he
fastened them together into a door. In the ground log he pecked a hole
big enough to receive one of the points and made a corresponding hole
in the under side of the top log. Then, prying up the eave log, he put
the door in place, let the eave log down again, and the door was hung.
A string to it made an outside fastening when it was twisted around a
projecting snag in the wall, and a peg thrust into a hole within made
an inside fastener. Some logs, with fir boughs and dried grass, formed
a bunk within. This left only the window, and for lack of better cover
he fastened over it a piece of muslin brought from home. But finding
its dull white a jarring note, he gathered a quart of butternuts, and
watching his chance at home, he boiled the cotton in water with the
nuts and so reduced it to a satisfactory yellowish brown.

His final task was to remove all appearance of disturbance and to
fully hide the shanty in brush and trailing vines. Thus, after weeks
of labour, his woodland home was finished. It was only five feet high
inside, six feet long and six feet wide--dirty and uncomfortable--but
what a happiness it was to have it.

Here for the first time in his life he began to realize something
of the pleasure of single-handed achievement in the line of a great
ambition.




VIII

Beginnings of Woodlore


During this time Yan had so concentrated all his powers on the shanty
that he had scarcely noticed the birds and wild things. Such was his
temperament--one idea only, and that with all his strength.

His heart was more and more in his kingdom now he longed to come
and live here. But he only dared to dream that some day he might be
allowed to pass a night in the shanty. This was where he would lead
his ideal life--the life of an Indian with all that is bad and cruel
left out. Here he would show men how to live without cutting down all
the trees, spoiling all the streams, and killing every living thing.
He would learn how to get the fullest pleasure out of the woods
himself and then teach others how to do the same. Though the birds and
Fourfoots fascinated him, he would not have hesitated to shoot one
had he been able, but to see a tree cut down always caused him
great distress. Possibly he realized that the bird might be quickly
replaced, but the tree, never.

To carry out his plan he must work hard at school, for books had
much that he needed. Perhaps some day he might get a chance to see
Audubon's drawings, and so have all his bird worries settled by a
single book.

That summer a new boy at school added to Yan's savage equipment. This
boy was neither good nor bright; he was a dunce, and had been expelled
from a boarding school for misconduct, but he had a number of
schoolboy accomplishments that gave him a tinge of passing glory.
He could tie a lot of curious knots in a string. He could make a
wonderful birdy warble, and he spoke a language that he called Tutnee.
Yan was interested in all, but especially the last. He teased and
bribed till he was admitted to the secret. It consisted in spelling
every word, leaving the five vowels as they are, but doubling each
consonant and putting a "u" between. Thus "b" became "bub," "d" "dud,"
"m" "mum," and so forth, except that "c" was "suk," "h" "hash," "x"
"zux," and "w" "wak."

The sample given by the new boy, "sus-hash-u-tut u-pup yak-o-u-rur
mum-o-u-tut-hash," was said to be a mode of enjoining silence.

This language was "awful useful," the new boy said, to keep the other
fellows from knowing what you were saying, which it certainly did. Yan
practised hard at it and within a few weeks was an adept. He could
handle the uncouth sentences better than his teacher, and he was
singularly successful in throwing in accents and guttural tones that
imparted a delightfully savage flavour, and he rejoiced in jabbering
away to the new boy in the presence of others so that he might bask in
the mystified look on the faces of those who were not skilled in the
tongue of the Tutnees.

He made himself a bow and arrows. They were badly made and he could
hit nothing with them, but he felt so like an Indian when he drew the
arrow to its head, that it was another pleasure.

He made a number of arrows with hoop-iron heads, these he could
file at home in the woodshed. The heads were jagged and barbed and
double-barbed. These arrows were frightful-looking things. They seemed
positively devilish in their ferocity, and were proportionately
gratifying. These he called his "war arrows," and would send one into
a tree and watch it shiver, then grunt "Ugh, heap good," and rejoice
in the squirming of the imaginary foe he had pierced.

He found a piece of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor
moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping
knife; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until
he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch
for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, might do duty as a
kill-tally. He made a sheath for the knife out of scraps of leather
left off the moccasins. Some water-colours, acquired by a school swap,
and a bit of broken mirror held in a split stick, were necessary parts
of his Indian toilet. His face during the process of make-up was
always a battle-ground between the horriblest Indian scowl
and a grin of delight at his success in diabolizing his visage with
the paints. Then with painted face and a feather in his hair he would
proudly range the woods in his little kingdom and store up every scrap
of woodlore he could find, invent or learn from his schoolmates.

[Illustration: Yan's toilet]

Odd things that he found in the woods he would bring to his shanty:
curled sticks, feathers, bones, skulls, fungus, shells, an old
cowhorn--things that interested him, he did not know why. He made
Indian necklaces of the shells, strung together alternately with
the backbone of a fish. He let his hair grow as long as possible,
employing various stratagems, even the unpalatable one of combing it
to avoid the monthly trim of the maternal scissors. He lay for hours
with the sun beating on his face to correct his colour to standard,
and the only semblance of personal vanity that he ever had was
pleasure in hearing disparaging remarks about the darkness of his
complexion. He tried to do everything as an Indian would do it,
striking Indian poses, walking carefully with his toes turned in,
breaking off twigs to mark a place, guessing at the time by the sun,
and grunting "Ugh" or "Wagh" when anything surprised him. Disparaging
remarks about White-men, delivered in supposed Indian dialect, were
an important part of his pastime. "Ugh, White-men heap no good" and
"Wagh, paleface--pale fool in woods," were among his favourites.

He was much influenced by phrases that caught his ear. "The brown
sinewy arm of the Indian," was one of them. It discovered to him that
his own arms were white as milk. There was, however, a simple remedy.
He rolled up his sleeves to the shoulder and exposed them to the full
glare of the sun. Then later, under the spell of the familiar phrase,
"The warrior was naked to the waist," he went a step further--he
determined to be brown to the waist--so discarded his shirt during the
whole of one holiday. He always went to extremes. He remembered now
that certain Indians put their young warriors through an initiation
called the Sun-dance, so he danced naked round the fire in the blazing
sun and sat around naked all one day.