The Building of the Shack
Next morning, just as the gray oncoming Day was rolling back into the Forest depths the Night curtain, Muskwa, who was swinging along leisurely, with a walk like a Blue-Jacket, towards the Trapper’s Camp, discovered Wapoos sitting in his path.
“A snareless runway to you, Little Brother! Are you heading for the Shack?”
“Yes,” bleated Wapoos; “I’m still weak from the Seventh Year sickness, and hop badly, I fear.”
“Jump up, Afflicted One, your furry stomach will feel warm on my back,—Huh! huh! this beastly fog that comes up from the waters of the Athabasca to battle with the sunlight gets into my lungs. I shall soon have to creep into a warm nest for my long sleep.”
“Hast seen any of our Comrades?” queried Wapoos, as he lay in the velvet cushion of black fur that was a good four inches deep on Bear’s back.
“I heard Rof’s hoarse bay as he called across the Pelican to some one. Here is Nekik’s trail, where his belly has scraped all the mud spots.”
“Aren’t we a funny lot?” giggled Wapoos. “Mooswa’s legs are like the posts of Man’s cache—so long; and Otter’s are like the knots on a tree—too short. See! there goes Black King and his red-headed Mother.”
“That is the queerest outfit in the Boundaries,” chuckled Muskwa. “The Widow is red, and three of the Sons; the Babe, Stripes, is brown, with a dark cross on his back; while the King is as black as my Daddy was. Sweet Honey! but his coat was beautiful—like the inside of a hole on a pitch-dark night. There is a family of Half-breeds up at The Landing just like the Widow’s lot. Some are red-haired, some are brown, and some are black. I saw them once Fishing at Duck Lake.”
“Did they see you, Muskwa?”
“Am I not here, Little Brother—therefore their eyes were busy with the Fish. Wu-u-f-f! I catch the scent of Man. Jump down, Wapoos; push through the Willows and tell me what thou seest.”
Bear sat on his haunches and waited.
“There’s a white lodge,” reported Rabbit, as he hopped back, “and inside is a throat-call that is not of our Comrades.”
“That’s Man’s tepee; most like it was The Boy’s song your big ears heard.”
They went forward gingerly, Wapoos acting as pilot. In a little open space where Red Stone Brook emptied into the Athabasca was a small “A” tent. The two comrades lay down in the willows to watch. Soon they were joined by Black King; Otter was already there. Then came Blue Wolf and Mooswa. As Carcajou joined them, Whisky-Jack fluttered into the centre of the party.
“That’s a Tent,” he said, with the air of a courier explaining sights to a party of tourists. “The Boy is putting on his fur. Do you hear his song-cry?”
“He hath a full stomach,” growled Rof, “for his voice is rich in content. What is the cry, Bird of Knowledge?”
“It’s a song of my Crow Cousins. I’ll repeat a line for your fur-filled ears:—
“‘There were three crows sat on a tree,
And they were black as crows could be;
Said one of them unto his mate,
Let’s catch old Carcajou to ate!’”
“All of a kind flock together,” retorted Wolverine; “Birds, and Boys, and Fools!”
Jack chuckled. To have roused Carcajou’s anger was something to start the day with.
“Plenty of Water to you all, Comrades,” greeted Beaver pleasantly, patting a smooth seat for himself with his tail, as he joined the others.
“Where is the Man?” queried Black King.
“Sleeping!” answered Jack. “He makes a noise with his nose like fat Muskwa does when he runs from Grizzly.”
“That’s a pretty lodge,” remarked Beaver, critically. “When will they flood it?”
“Stupid! they don’t live in water,” reproved Jay. “If it is wet they make a little hollow path and run the water off.”
“Is that a Dead-fall, Jack?” asked Muskwa, pointing his gray nozzle at a small square building that was three logs high.
“It’s their Shack; they started it yesterday.”
“A poor Lodge!” declared Umisk. “The first flood will undermine the corners, and down it will come. Have they no trowel-tails to round it up with good blue-clay?”
“Umisk, you should travel. Your ideas are limited. Have they not built their Shack on high ground where there will be no flood?”
“But they’ll freeze in the Winter,” persisted Beaver. “The water would keep them warm if they flooded it.”
“They’ve got a stove,” the Courier answered.
“What’s a stove?” asked Lynx.
“You’ll find out, Mister Cat, when they make bouillon of your ribs. It’s that iron-thing with one long ear.”
“Is that their breakfast—that pile of wood-meat?” queried Beaver.
“Yes, meat for the stove,” piped Jack. “Do you think they have teeth like a wood-axe and eat bark because you do?”
“They have queer teeth, sure enough,” retorted Trowel Tail. “See this tree stump, cut flat from two sides, all full of notches, as though a Kit-Beaver who didn’t know his business had nibbled it down. How in the name of Good Dams they can fell trees into a stream that way I can’t make out. This tree fell on land and they had to carry the logs. They’re silly creatures and have much to learn.”
“There’s The Boy!” whispered Jack, nudging Muskwa in the ribs with his wing.
They all peered eagerly at the door of the tent, for a white-skinned hand was unlacing it. Then a fair face, with rosy cheeks, topped by a mass of yellow hair, was thrust through the opening, and presently a lad of fourteen stepped out, stretched his arms upward, and commenced whistling like a bird.
“That’s the Boy-call,” said Black King, in a soft voice. “Listen, Comrades, so that we may know it. François gives voice to the Man-call: ‘Hi, yi! hi, yi! E-e-e-g-o-o-o-!’ which means, in their talk, ‘Hear! hear! it is I—I—A Man!’ That is because they claim to be Lords of all the Animal Kingdom, even as I am Ruler in our own Boundaries.”
“What a lovely Pup!” cried the Red Widow, enthusiastically; “he’s got yellow hair just like my Babe—look, Stripes! Plump Birds! but I wish I had him in my litter.”
“‘Pup,’ indeed!” exclaimed Whisky-Jack, indignantly. “A Man-Boy called ‘Pup,’ by a frowsy old Fox Widow.”
“Clerk!” interrupted Black King, angrily.
“François! François!” called The Boy, putting his face inside the tent; “the sun is up, the fog is gone, and I’m as hungry as a Wolf.”
Rof started. “Gur-r-r-! how does the Cub know my stomach is lean because of the Seventh Year famine?”
A pair of sharp, black eyes gleamed from the tent flap. They belonged to the Half-breed Trapper, François.
“Move back, Brothers, a little into the Willows,” whispered Black King; “he has Devil-eyes, like Wolverine.”
“His Majesty flatters you, Carcajou,” sneered Whisky-Jack.
François came out, took his axe, and made some shavings from a Jack-pine stick.
“Will they eat that?” asked Beaver.
The Breed stepped over to a Birch tree, peeled from its side a handful of silver, ribbon-like bark, and lighted it with a match; it blazed and crackled like oil-soaked shavings. Then he shoved it into the stove, put chips and three sticks of wood in, shut the door, and thick black smoke curled up from the stove pipe. The animals stared with extraordinary interest.
Whisky-Jack craned his head, and watched the effect of this magic on his Comrades.
“That’s the Devil-thing that destroyed all the Birds and their Eggs,” said the Red Widow. “It’s the Man-fire.”
Blue Wolf was trembling. “E-u-h! E-u-h!” he whined; “Man’s Fire-medicine. It grows like the wind, and destroys like the Rabbit plague. Once seven Brothers of mine stalked a Man and he started this Fire-medicine.”
“What happened, Rof?” asked Carcajou.
“The Man escaped.”
“And your Seven Brothers?”
“This red-poison ate them as Otter devours a Fish—bones and all.”
“I think the stove is a good thing,” decided Black King. “The Man-fire is in a Trap.”
“Yes, the Fire-trap is a good thing,” concurred his Mother, “if we wish to save the Birds.”
“And the Rabbits!” added Lynx.
“And the Berries!” grunted Muskwa.
“The purple Moose-weed grows after fire has eaten the Forest,” mused Mooswa; “and if it glows hot and red on one river bank I swim to the other.”
“It’s all right for you, Long-legs, Pudding-nose, Bob-tail,” gibed Whisky-Jack; “but the Law of the Boundaries is for the good of all, and this Fire-trap is a fine thing. I hate to have hot coals falling on my feathers, when the Forest is on fire.”
The smoke curled lazily riverward, away from the animals. Suddenly it veered about and the pungent perfume of burning Birch-bark came toward them.
Mooswa straightened his massive head, spread the nostrils of his great cushion-shaped nose, cocked his thick ears forward intently, and discriminated between the different scents that came floating on the sleepy morning air.
“The fire breath—Wh-e-e!” It tickled a cough in his throat. “The odour of the Half-breed,” ugh! he knew that—it was the Man-smell. “But stop! What?” A something out of the long ago crept into his sensitive nostrils and touched his memory. Surely once it had been familiar.
The Boy crossed directly in the wind’s path, and Mooswa got it stronger. Then he knew. His big eyes glistened softly, eagerly; it was the scent of the Lad he had played with in his youth.
“Comrades,” he gurgled, for something was in his throat, “have I not told you of the Boy who was the Factor’s Young?”
“Whenever you got a chance!” snapped Whisky-Jack.
Mooswa sighed wearily. Jack’s frivolity was tiring to his sedate mind.
“Well, that’s my Boy there. I’d like to rub my nose against his rose-flowered cheek.”
“While François tickled your lean ribs with the Firestick!” jeered the Bird.
“Bring a pot of water,” said François to his comrade, “while I cut up the fish.”
“Great Suckers!” exclaimed Nekik; “Fish! and a beauty, too. It’s a Tulabie. I know them; they’re first cousin to White-fish. These men have fine taste—a fish diet makes one clever.”
“It does!” declared Mink.
“It’s better than roots!” concurred Muskrat.
“Slow Birds! it makes me hungry,” sighed the Red Widow.
“So it does me, Good Dame,” piped Whisky-Jack. “You chaps had better slip away home now; I’m going to breakfast with the Men. It isn’t safe to remain, for I can’t stop to look after you.”
“Go and clear the plates, Feather-front,” cried Carcajou, malignantly.
Jack sawed the air energetically with his wings and lighted on the wire guy with which François had steadied the stove pipe.
“Shall we move, Comrades?” asked Black King.
“Wait and see how Jack gets on with The Boy,” pleaded Mooswa.
“I could sit here and smell that Fish all day,” declared Nekik.
“So could I,” added Mink. “It’s just lovely. I’ve never tasted Fish dried in the fire-pot. Once I stole one from a Trapper which he had dried in the sun—there was no juice in it.”
“Pe-e-p! Peep!” squeaked Whisky-Jack. The Boy looked up at him.
“What a frowsy-headed old bird!” he exclaimed, shying a stick at Jay.
Muskwa dug Mooswa in the ribs with his big paw. “We’ll see fun yet if we wait,” he chuckled thickly.
“Don’t bodder ’bout dat fell’,” remonstrated François; “dat’s only Whisky-Jack.”
“Only what?” asked the lad.
“What dey call Canadienne Jay—Whisky-Jack.”
“Shall I shoot him?”
“No; dat fell’ no good, but he’s not wort’ de powder an’ s’ot.”
Jack heard a faint giggle come up from the gray willows, for Wolverine had his big-clawed fist half-way down his throat to choke the sound of laughter.
“Our Clerk’s Men Friends are complimentary,” remarked Black King.
The Boy cut a small piece of fat pork, stuck it on a sharp stick, and busied himself somewhat at the stove front; but the watchers could not quite see what he was doing.
“I think I’ll give Jay some breakfast,” he said suddenly; “the bird seems hungry:” and straightening his back, threw towards him the lump of pork.
With a pleased chuckle Jack swooped down and drove his beak into the white mass like a lance. Then he went through a rare set of gymnastic contortions, for the wicked Boy had heated the pork scalding hot. Jack clawed at it with his feet and burnt his toes—his tongue was blistered.
“What’s that noise?” exclaimed Rod, for a distinct muffled laugh had escaped from the band of animals.
“It’s de float-ice groundin’ on de ribber-banks, I tink me,” answered François, cocking his head sideways to listen.
As the animals slipped away in alarm, Jack came fluffing after them, and perched himself indignantly on Mooswa’s great antlers.
“O my Giant Brother!” he cried furiously, “come and kill that debased Man-Cub, I beg you.”
The Moose’s shaggy sides were heaving with suppressed laughter. “What has he done, Sweet Bird?” he moaned.
“Taken the skin off my toes, and blistered my tongue with his accursed fat pork.”
“Why don’t you wear boots as I do, and not knock around barefooted? I should be always jamming my toes if I hadn’t these thick boots. Why, last year when the big fire was on, I went through miles of burning country, and except a little hardening up of the soles, there was no harm done.”
“But you don’t wear them on your tongue, do you?” asked the Bird, crossly.
“No, Silent One, I don’t—neither do you; but if you’ll just wrap it up for a few days and give it a rest, I’m sure it will be all right.”
“Do,” cried Carcajou; “we sha’n’t mind. I suppose that’s what The Boy calls his Tongue Trap—he knew whom to set it for, too.”
“Come and trample him with your sharp hoofs, dear Mooswa,” pleaded Whisky-Jack, the lack of sympathy and the chaff making him furious.
“Oh, sit still, if you’re going to ride on my horns,” exclaimed the Bull. “You’re jigging about—”
“As though he had corns,” interrupted Carcajou.
“It was so nice of you, Whisky-Jack,” said Lynx, in an oily tone, “to take care of us all while we were there—wasn’t it? Some of us might have burned our tongues but for you destroying the hot Bait.”
When the animals got back to their meeting-place, which was known as the Boundary Centre, they stopped for a time to compare notes.
“Comrades,” said Mooswa, “little have I claimed from you. I kill not anything; neither the Fox Cubs, nor the Sons of Umisk, nor the red-tailed Birds that beat their wings like drums, nor anything. But this new law I ask of you all in the face of the King; for the Boy that was my Man-brother, the safeguard of the Boundaries.”
“You have not had the hot-meat thrust in your throat, friend of the rascally Cub,” objected Jack, angrily.
“Hush, Chatterer!” growled Bear; “let Mooswa speak.”
“The horn-crowned Lord of the Forest gives expression to a noble sentiment,” declared Pisew. “By all means let the Kit-Man grow free of the Boundary Fear, until his claws are long and his bone-cracking teeth are strong.”
“He must have a Mother also,” said the Red-Widow softly. “You have all forsworn malice to my Babe, Stripes, until he is of full strength—let the Man-Cub have the same guard.”
“What about François?” objected Whisky-Jack. “By my Stone-crop I’ll wager he taught that Chick the trick of the hot pork.”
“For him,” continued Mooswa, gravely, “in defence of our rights and our lives the full law of the Forest; by night, the lone road and the cry of Blue Wolf and his Brothers; by day, the strong clasp of Muskwa; at close quarters, the stamp of my hoofs; and for his Traps and their Bait, the cunning of Carcajou and Black King.”
“This is fair—it is a good Law,” said Black Fox.
“It is!” they all cried in chorus.
“I am satisfied!” added the Moose.
“I think it would be well, Subjects,” said Black King, thoughtfully, “to watch this Man and Man-Cub until the setting out of the Traps; after that we can regulate our lives in accordance. How long will it take them to build their Shack, Clerk?”
“Four days, François told The Boy last evening, as he smoked the scent-flower.”
“Then on the fourth day, three or four of us who are quick travellers had better go and watch the evil ways of this Slayer. What say you all?”
“Most wise King,” exclaimed Pisew, “select thou the Strong Runners.”
“Very well: Mooswa, Muskwa, Rof, and myself—also Carcajou, for he has great knowledge of Man the Killer’s ways.”
“I should like to see the lodge when it is finished,” whined Beaver, “but my short little fore-legs travel not overfast on land.”
“So you shall, Comrade,” growled Muskwa; “You may ride on my back.”
“Or on my antlers,” suggested Mooswa; “their bowl will be like a cradle for you.”
“That’s settled, then,” declared Black Fox. “On the fourth round of the Sun we meet at François’s Shack, in the safety time of the Forest, dawn hour; either that or dusk hour. What say you Brothers—which shall it be?”
“It would suit me better on account of my work,” ventured Umisk, “to go at dusk hour. I have lost much time lately, and I’m building new lodges for my three-year-old Sons who are starting out for themselves this Fall.”
“Don’t be late, then—I go to bed at dusk,” lisped Whisky-Jack, mincingly, for his tongue was wondrous sore. “I will take note of what the Men do in the meantime.”
“And take care of us, O Wise Bird,” sneered Pisew.
“Big-feet! Spear-ear! Herring-waist!” fairly screamed Jay, forgetting the sore tongue in his rage. “Before Winter is over, you’ll be glad of Jack’s advice, or I don’t know François.”
“The white of a Partridge egg is good for a burn,” retorted Lynx. “Find one and cool your fevered tongue.”
“Are not these wranglers just like Men, Carcajou?” remarked Mooswa. “If you all spent more time in lawful hunt for food you would be fatter. It will profit me more to browse in the Forest than listen to your frost-singed wit, so I leave you, Comrades.”
“And I prefer even fat Frogs to hot fat Pork,” said Pisew, maliciously, slinking like a shadow into the woods.
“‘Fat Frogs,’” sneered Carcajou; “good enough for that smooth-faced Sneak—I hardly know what I’m going to have for dinner, though.”
“Fat Birds are the thing to tickle my appetite,” declared Black King. “It is coming the time of day for them to shove their heads under wing, too. I’m off—remember we meet on the Fourth day.”