XVI
ISLAND OR MAINLAND?
To navigate Lake Superior on a raft was a perilous undertaking, but theattempt had to be made. Hoping to reach their destination before thewind came up again, the castaways started at dawn, while the mists stilllay on the water and the land to north and west showed shadowy andindistinct. When the three, with their scanty equipment, had taken theirplaces, the rude raft had all it would carry. It seemed as if an addedpound or two might easily sink it. Etienne and Ronald knelt one on eachside to ply the paddles, which fortunately had not been blown away,while Jean, who was of lighter build, sat between them, legs extended.The course was northwest, for in that direction the land seemed nearest.
All went well at first, but progress was very slow, and, before they hadgone two miles, the wind was rising with the advancing day, and wasthreatening to make the raft unmanageable. As the mists cleared away,the voyageurs discovered that the land in front of them extended as faras they could see in either direction. On the left, to the southwest, itcurved around and shut off the lake, but did not furnish muchprotection, for the shore on that side lay at least ten miles away.Evidently they were in a large bay, ten or twelve miles long and threeor four broad, protected on the west and north by high land, partly cutoff from the lake by rock islands to the south and southeast, but opento the northeast, and affording little shelter for small craft. As thewind rose and the ripples changed to waves, the peril of their positionincreased, and Ronald and the Ojibwa had their hands full guiding theirclumsy craft and making headway. Every few moments a wave washed on itand sometimes over it, and the three were soon wet to their waists. Butthey managed to stick to the raft and continued to make some progresstowards land.
The danger increased momentarily, and, as they approached a rocky shore,they lost control of the raft in the rising wind. The paddles were nolonger of avail in handling the unwieldy thing. Wind and water took itwherever they would, the Indian and the boys washed and rolled about bythe waves, but clinging with fingers and toes to the roots and barkropes that bound the logs together. The boys' only hope was that theywould be carried ashore.
Unluckily rocks off the shore were in the way. A gust of wind bore theraft full on a jagged, upturned edge of rock, a sharp point penetratedbetween two of the slender poles and ripped through the fastenings. Theraft hung suspended at an angle, the waves washing it, the castawaysclinging to the slanting surface. The raft was doomed. It could not lastmany minutes without splitting in two. If they were to gain the shore,they must swim for it. Fortunately it was only a few feet away.
Ronald, who was the best swimmer of the three, went first, his blanketand the rest of his belongings fastened to his shoulders, Etienne's gun,for Ronald had lost his own, held over his head with one hand, while heswam with the other. The waves bore him along, but his greatest dangerwas from the rocks, and he had to be on the lookout for a place where hecould land without bruising himself against them. He rounded aprojecting point, which broke the force of the water, and succeeded inmaking a landing just beyond. Then, having pulled himself up a steep,slippery slope, he turned to see how his companions were faring.
Jean and the Ojibwa had left the raft at the same moment, but thelatter, like many Indians, was a poor swimmer. In spite of the fact thathe was not burdened with a gun and could use both arms, he had fallenbehind Jean and was making bad work of the short passage. In safety Jeanpassed the point Ronald had gone around, but Etienne, caught by anunusually large wave, was borne against a rock, striking the side of hishead.
The moment Ronald saw what had happened, he plunged into the wateragain, shouting to Jean as he did so. Jean turned back at once, duckingthrough an advancing wave like a sea-gull. The Indian had gone under,and a receding wave had dragged him back from the rock. Just as he wasbeing washed against it again, Jean, dropping his gun, seized him withone hand. He was unconscious, and Jean could hardly have managed himalone in such a heavy sea. Ronald reached him in a moment, however, andtogether they towed the inert body to shore, and succeeded in draggingand hoisting it up the rocks to safety.
It was the blow on the side of the head that had made Nangotook loseconsciousness, for he had not swallowed much water. The boys laid himface downward and lifted him at the waist to get rid of what littlewater he had taken in, but it was several minutes before he came to. Hehad nothing to say about the accident and offered no thanks for therescue, but it was evident from his changed manner that he was notunmindful that his companions had saved his life. Ever since Ronald haddefied the manitos and had appeared to question Nangotook's courage, thelatter had been morose, gruff and silent, and had shown plainly that theScotch lad had offended him deeply. Now, however, he seemed to thinkthey were quits, for the angry mood had passed and he was himself again.
The adventurers were disappointed to find they had not reached themainland, but were on an island about a mile long and half a mile widein its broadest part. It was of irregular shape, two little bays runninginto it on the east and west, almost cutting it in two. The island wascovered with trees, among them birches large enough to make theconstruction of a canoe possible. Other islands lay near at hand, whilewhat they took to be the main shore was not more than half a mile away.Reaching it would be a simple matter, as soon as they had built a canoe.
The most important thing at the moment, however, was food. They hadeaten nothing that day, and nothing the day before but a veryinsufficient amount of gull flesh. In a birch bark receptacle wrappedin Jean's blanket, was the small quantity of corn, not more than twohandfuls, they had saved so carefully. Convinced that they would soon beable to reach the land to the west, and that there must be game on solarge a tract, they decided to eat this last remnant of theirprovisions. Etienne made another bark cooking vessel and prepared arather thin soup of the corn. They made way with every drop and hungeredfor more.
Then Ronald sought for game while the Indian and Jean began canoemaking. Ronald met with no success. Not a trace of game of any kindcould he find. Apparently there was not even a squirrel on the island,and no gulls frequented it. He tried fishing from shore and rocks, butdid not get a bite. Once more the wanderers were obliged to lie down forthe night supperless, while from somewhere across the water an owlhooted derisively.
"If that fellow comes over here where we can get him, he'll be howlingin a different tone," growled Ronald. He was so hungry he would not haverejected an owl, in spite of its animal diet.
"The great horned one is far too wise to come close enough for us tocatch or shoot him," Jean replied.
All three had worked late by firelight that night. They were expert atcanoe building, and, though they did not appear to hurry, but performedeach step of the operation carefully and thoroughly, they wasted fewmotions. Without any ready made materials, however, and no tools excepttheir axes, knives and a big, strong needle for sewing, the task wasnecessarily a slow one and could not be completed in one day. They hadfelled suitable trees, white cedar for the frame and birch for thecovering, and had skilfully peeled the birch bark, stripping a trunk ina single piece and scraping the inner surface as a tanner scrapesleather. Their ball of wattap and chunk of gum were gone, so they had todig small spruce roots and gather spruce gum, soak, peel and split theroots and twist the strands into cord, and boil the gum to prepare itfor use. Ribs, gunwales, cross pieces and sheathing had to be hewed andwhittled out of the tough, elastic, but light and easily cut cedar wood,and soaked to render them as pliable as possible.
An open space, with soil deep enough to hold stakes, had been selected,and the stakes cut and driven in to outline the shape of the canoe.Within them the frame was formed, large stones being placed on the ribsto keep them in shape until dry. Slender cross pieces or barsstrengthened and held the ribs in place, and the ends were pointed andfitted into holes in the rim, then bound with wattap. The pieces ofbark, which had been sewed together, were fitted neatly over this frame,and wattap was wrapped over and over the gunwale and passed through barkand ribs. Next to the bark, a
nd held in place by the ribs, strips ofcedar, shaved as thin as the blade of a knife, were placed to formsheathing. The last process was the gumming of the seams to make themwater-tight. The gum, softened by heat, was applied, and the seamscarefully gone over with a live coal held in a split stick, while, withthe thumb of the other hand, the canoe maker pressed in the stickysubstance.
The boat was done at last, and, though made without saw, hammer, chisel,plane, nails, boards or paint, was, when completed and put in the water,a strong, sound, light, graceful, well-balanced craft that satisfiedeven the Indian's critical eye. It floated buoyantly, and was waterproof in every seam.
During the boat building, a few small fish had been caught, but no onehad had half enough to eat. As the three paddled away in their newcanoe, they debated whether they had better land at once or skirt theshore looking for possible beaches. They were not yet fully convincedthat they might not be near the yellow sands. Food, not sand, was thefirst necessity, however, and Nangotook and Jean expressed themselves infavor of landing immediately and looking for game. But Ronald pointedout that they had scarcely any ammunition left, and that to catch gamewith snares and traps would be slow work. They had better try for fishfirst, he said, and they could do that while going along shore. Jean atonce agreed, and Nangotook, when he saw the others were both againsthim, grunted his assent. So, when close to a gently sloping rock beach,they turned and paddled northeast, with a fishing line attached to thestern paddle.
They had gone but a little way, when a pull at the line signaled a bite.The fish did not make as hard a fight as the lake trout they had caughtbefore, while fishing in the same manner, and when Jean pulled it overthe side, he was disappointed to find that it was a siskiwit or lakesalmon. Siskiwit are not very good eating for they are very fat and thiswas a small one weighing not over three pounds. Hungry as they were,they decided to try their luck again, in the hope of getting a betterand larger fish, but after paddling for fifteen or twenty minutes andcatching another larger siskiwit, they could wait no longer.
They put in to the rock beach very carefully, stepping out into thewater before the bow grounded, to avoid scraping the new canoe. There onthe rock Ronald and Etienne made a fire of moss, bark and birch wood,while Jean cleaned the fish. The boiled siskiwit was very fat and oily,but the three were so nearly starved that it seemed a feast to them. Asthey had not been accustomed to use salt with their food they did notmiss that luxury. While the lads were preparing the meal, Etienne haddiscovered a well defined hare runway. The boys had to admit that asupply of food was a prime necessity, and they agreed to camp where theywere until next day and make every attempt to secure game.
After Etienne had gone to set his snares, Ronald and Jean crossed thesloping rock beach, which was rough and scored. A little back from thewater's edge it was covered more or less thickly, first with lichens,and then with moss, bearberry plants and creeping evergreens. Lookingfor signs of game, they pushed their way through spruce and birch woods,stopping several times to set snares where hares had made a runway orsquirrels had left a little pile of cone scales, with the seeds neatlyextracted, at the foot of a spruce. The two had been going through thewoods for perhaps half a mile, when they came out suddenly on the shoreof a body of water.
"A bay," exclaimed Jean, "who would have looked for one here?"
"It looks more like a lake," Ronald replied. "The water is brownish likethe little streams we've seen, and there is no opening in sight."
Jean shook his head. "Just because we cannot see an opening is no signthat there is none," he said. "Shores that look continuous are notalways so, as you well know. Unless we have reached the mainland, thismust be a landlocked bay. It is surely too large for a lake within anisland."
"It looks to me as if we _had_ reached the mainland," Ronald answered."See how high the land towers beyond this lake or bay. If this is anisland it must be Minong or Philippeau, and our Island of Yellow Sandslies far to the east. Let us go back for the canoe and cross this lakeor skirt its shores. We have time enough before darkness comes."
The Island of Yellow Sands: An Adventure and Mystery Story for Boys Page 16