Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER XIII-FIs.h.i.+NG THROUGH THE ICE

As is usually the case in Minnesota, the fine outdoor skating came to a close toward the end of November through storms and snow-falls.

If the lads had not lived in company with such men as the trapper and Tatanka, time would have hung heavily on their hands. On many days the weather was very cold and the snow had become so deep in the woods that traveling was very difficult.

After they had been shut up in the cabin for three days by a bad storm, Tatanka one morning began to carve something out of a piece of soft ba.s.swood.

”What are you making?” Tim asked.

”Watch and see,” said Tatanka, as he continued slowly to cut away small white shavings.

Soon the boys saw that Tatanka was making a wooden fish about six inches long. When the figure was ready, the Indian cut small pieces of tin out of a tobacco-can and these he tacked to his wooden minnow to serve as fins.

”There, my little brothers,” he uttered with a smile, ”you have a good minnow. He will fool the pickerel and the ba.s.s when they are hungry. I put a little piece of lead on him and you pull him up and down in the water, and pickerel and ba.s.s think he is a real fish. They come to eat him. May be you catch them.”

After Tatanka had made two more wooden minnows he and the lads went to a deep quiet place in a slough to fish.

At first they cut a small hole in the ice. Then, by the aid of a few poles and some blankets, Tatanka built a small dark tent over the hole.

”Now, then,” he said, ”we go in and fish. May be we catch them, may be not. If the fish don't come, we go home. May be they come to-morrow.”

The tent was entirely dark, but the boys were surprised to find that after their eyes had adjusted themselves to the darkness in the tent the water did not appear dark, but was pervaded by a soft light, enabling them to see clearly even insects and small fish which swam past, and they could plainly see their decoy minnow to a depth of four feet.

Tatanka took the string of the decoy in his left hand. In his right hand he held a spear, and the three fishermen seated themselves on a log.

”You sit still,” Tatanka told them. ”Don't jump. Fish have no ears, but they can feel every little noise in the water.”

It seemed a long time to the boys before anything happened. Then Tatanka bent over quickly, thrust his spear into the hole and brought up a large flapping pickerel.

”May be we caught him,” he spoke with a laugh. ”Now, Bill, you catch him. This is the way Indians catch plenty fish in winter when they cannot find deer.”

Again Bill waited a long time. At last he saw some big fish. With a beating heart he dropped his spear and would have lost it, if it had not been tied by a string to his arm, but he caught no fish.

Tatanka laughed. ”You get much excited,” he said, ”like white man. Keep cool like Indian. May be you catch him next time.”

The next time Bill showed that he could keep cool, and he brought up a fine large ba.s.s. The fish were getting more numerous and Bill added another and another to his catch. Sometimes several fish or even a small school of them came together. Very soon Bill could tell when a school was coming, because their bodies shut out a part of the light before they reached the hole and made the water look dark, as if a cloud were pa.s.sing over.

After Bill had fished a while, Tim also learned to fish like an Indian and brought up several fine fish.

”Now we go home,” Tatanka suggested, after a while. ”I think Tim is hungry.”

That night each man ate for supper a big ba.s.s, which Barker had fried in bacon fat and corn meal.

After this day, the boys often went fis.h.i.+ng by themselves and supplied the camp with all the fresh fish the four men cared to eat. They found that all the fish, ba.s.s and pike, pickerel and suckers, tasted remarkably good, for all fish are good if they have been caught in cold, clear water.

One warm morning, the genial old trapper took down the gill-net.

”You lads come with me,” he said. ”I can catch more fish in a day than you and Tatanka can catch in a week. Yesterday you fished all day and caught one little sunfish.”