"Now, wasn't it worth it?" asked Yan, who had had much difficulty in keeping Sam steadily at play that looked so very much like work.
"Wonder how that got here? I thought I left that in the teepee?" and Sam pointed to a log that he used for a seat in the teepee, but now it was lodged in the overflow.
Yan was a good swimmer, and as they played and splashed, Sam said: "Now I know who you are. You can't hide it from me no longer. I suspicioned it when you were working on the dam. You're that tarnal Redskin they call 'Little Beaver.'"
"I've been watching you," retorted Yan, "and it seems to me I've run up against that copper-coloured scallawag—'Young-Man-Afraid-of-a-Shovel.'"
"No, you don't," said Sam. "Nor I ain't 'Bald- Eagle-Settin'-on-a-Rock-with-his-Tail-Hangin'-over-the-Edge,' nuther. In fact, I don't keer to be recognized just now. Ain't it a relief to think the cattle don't have to take that walk any more?"
Sam was evidently trying to turn the subject, but Yan would not be balked. "I heard Si call you 'Woodpecker' the other day."
"Yep. I got that at school. When I was a kid to hum I heerd Ma talk about me be-a-u-tiful golden hair, but when I got big enough to go to school I learned that it was only red, an' they called me the 'Red-headed Woodpecker.' I tried to lick them, but lots of them could lick me an' rubbed it in wuss. When I seen fightin' didn't work, I let on to like it, but it was too late then. Mostly it's just 'Woodpecker' for short. I don't know as it ever lost me any sleep."
Half an hour later, as they sat by the fire that Yan made with rubbing-sticks, he said, "Say, Woodpecker, I want to tell you a story." Sam grimaced, pulled his ears forward, and made ostentatious preparations to listen.
"There was once an Indian squaw taken prisoner by some other tribe way up north. They marched her 500 miles away, but one night she escaped and set out, not on the home trail, for she knew they would follow that way and kill her, but to one side. She didn't know the country and got lost. She had no weapons but a knife, and no food but berries. Well, she travelled fast for several days till a rainstorm came, then she felt safe, for she knew her enemies could not trail her now. But winter was near and she could not get home before it came. So she set to work right where she was.
"She made a wigwam of Birch bark and a fire with rubbing-sticks, using the lace of her moccasin for a bow-string. She made snares of the inner bark of the Willow and of Spruce roots, and deadfalls, too, for Rabbits. She was starving sometimes, at first, but she ate the buds and inner bark of Birch trees till she found a place where there were lots of Rabbits. And when she caught some she used every scrap of them. She made a fishing-line of the sinews, and a hook of the bones and teeth lashed together with sinew and Spruce gum.
"She made a cloak of Rabbit skins, sewed with needles of Rabbit bone and thread of Rabbit sinew, and a lot of dishes of Birch bark sewed with Spruce roots.
"She put in the whole winter there alone, and when the spring came she was found by Samuel Hearne, the great traveller. Her precious knife was worn down, but she was fat and happy and ready to set out for her own people."
"Well, I say that's mighty inter-est-in'," said Sam—he had listened attentively—"an' I'd like nothin' better than to try it myself if I had a gun an' there was lots of game."
"Pooh, who wouldn't?"
"Mighty few—an' there's mighty few who could."
"I could."
"What, make everything with just a knife? I'd like to see you make a teepee," then adding earnestly, "Sam, we've been kind o' playing Injuns; now let's do it properly. Let's make everything out of what we find in the woods."
"Guess we'll have to visit the Sanger Witch again. She knows all about plants."
"We'll be the Sanger Indians. We can both be Chiefs," said Yan, not wishing to propose himself as Chief or caring to accept Sam as his superior. "I'm Little Beaver. Now what are you?"
"Bloody-Thundercloud-in-the-Afternoon."
"No, try again. Make it something you can draw, so you can make your totem, and make it short."
"What's the smartest animal there is?"
"I—I—suppose the Wolverine."
"What! Smarter'n a Fox?"
"The books say so."
"Kin he lick a Beaver?"
"Well, I should say so."
"Well, that's me."
"No, you don't. I'm not going around with a fellow that licks me. It don't fit you as well as 'Woodpecker,' anyhow. I always get you when I want a nice tree spoiled or pecked into holes," retorted Yan, magnanimously ignoring the personal reason for the name.
"Tain t as bad as beavering," answered Sam.
"Beavering" was a word with a history. Axes and timber were the biggest things in the lives of the Sangerites. Skill with the axe was the highest accomplishment. The old settlers used to make everything in the house out of wood, and with the axe for the only tool. It was even said that some of them used to "edge her up a bit" and shave with her on Sundays. When a father was setting his son up in life he gave him simply a good axe. The axe was the grand essential of life and work, and was supposed to be a whole outfit. Skill with the axe was general. Every man and boy was more or less expert, and did not know how expert he was till a real "greeny" came among them. There is a right way to cut for each kind of grain, and a certain proper way of felling a tree to throw it in any given direction with the minimum of labour. All these things are second nature to the Sangerite. A Beaver is credited with a haphazard way of gnawing round and round a tree till somehow it tumbles, and when a chopper deviates in the least from the correct form, the exact right cut in the exact right place, he is said to be "beavering"; therefore, while "working like a Beaver" is high praise, "beavering" a tree is a term of unmeasured reproach, and Sam's final gibe had point and force that none but a Sangerite could possibly have appreciated.
XI
Yan and the Witch
Yan took his earliest opportunity to revisit the Sanger Witch.
"Better leave me out," advised Sam, when he heard of it. "She'd never look at you if I went. You look too blame healthy."
So Yan went alone, and he was glad of it. Fond as he was of Sam, his voluble tongue and ready wit left Yan more or less in the shade, made him look sober and dull, and what was worse, continually turned the conversation just as it was approaching some subject that was of deepest interest to him.
As he was leaving, Sam called out, "Say, Yan, if you want to stay there to dinner it'll be all right— we'll know why you hain't turned up." Then he stuck his tongue in his cheek, closed one eye and went to the barn with his usual expression of inscrutable melancholy.
Yan carried his note-book—he used it more and more, also his sketching materials. On the road he gathered a handful of flowers and herbs. His reception by the old woman was very different this time.
"Come in, come in, God bless ye, an' hoo air ye, an' how is yer father an' mother—come in an' set down, an' how is that spalpeen, Sam Raften?"
"Sam's all right now," said Yan with a blush.
"All right! Av coorse he's all right. I knowed I'd fix him all right, an' he knowed it, an' his Ma knowed it when she let him come. Did she say onything about it?"