Part 18 (1/2)

Albert, full of enthusiasm, sprang into the canoe and made a mighty sweep with his paddle. The light dugout shot away, tipped on one side, and as Albert made another sweep with his paddle to right it, it turned over, bottom side up, casting the rash young paddler into ten feet of pure cold water. Albert came up with a mighty splash and sputter. He was a good swimmer, and he had also retained hold of the paddle unconsciously, perhaps. d.i.c.k regarded him contemplatively from the land. He had no idea of jumping in. One wet and cold boy was enough. Beside, rashness deserved its punishment.

”Get the canoe before it floats farther away,” he called out, ”and tow it to land. It has cost us too much work to be lost out on the lake.”

Albert swam to the canoe, which was now a dozen yards away, and quickly towed it and the paddle to land. There, s.h.i.+vering, the water running from him in streams, he stepped upon the solid earth.

”Run to the cabin as fast as you can,” said d.i.c.k. ”Take off those wet things, rub yourself down before the fire; then put on dry clothes and come back here and help me.”

Albert needed no urging, but it seemed to him that he would freeze before he reached the cabin, short as the distance was.

Fortunately, there was a good fire on the hearth, and, after he had rubbed down and put on his dry, warm suit of deerskin, he never felt finer in his life. He returned to the lake, but he felt sheepish on the way. That had been a rash movement of his, overenthusiastic, but he had been properly punished. His chagrin was increased when he saw d.i.c.k a considerable distance out on the lake in the canoe, driving it about in graceful curves with long sweeps of his paddle.

”This is the way it ought to be done,” called out d.i.c.k cheerily.

”Behold me, Richard Howard, the king of canoe men!”

”You've been practicing while I was gone!” exclaimed Albert.

”No doubt of it, my young friend, and that is why you see me showing such skill, grace, and knowledge. I give you the same recipe without charge: Look before you leap, especially if you're going to leap into a canoe. Now we'll try it together.”

He brought the canoe back to land, Albert got in cautiously, and for the rest of the day they practiced paddling, both together and alone. Albert got another ducking, and d.i.c.k, in a moment of overconfidence, got one, too, somewhat to Albert's pleasure and relief, as it has been truly said that misery loves company, but in two or three days they learned to use the canoe with ease.

Then, either together or alone, they would paddle boldly the full length of the lake, and soon acquired dexterity enough to use it for freight, too; that is, they would bring back in it across the lake anything that they had shot or trapped on the other side.

So completely had they lost count of time that d.i.c.k had an idea spring was coming, but winter suddenly shut down upon them again. It did not arrive with wind and snow this time, but in the night a wave of cold came down from the north so intense that the sheltered valley even did not repel it.

d.i.c.k and Albert did not appreciate how really cold it was until they went from the cabin into the clear morning air, when they were warned by the numbing sensation that a.s.sailed their ears and noses.

They hurried into the house and thawed out their faces, which stung greatly as they were exposed to the fire. Remembering the experiences of their early boyhood, they applied cold water freely, which allayed the stinging. After that they were very careful to wrap up fingers, ears, and noses when they went forth.

Now, the channel that Albert had made from the water of the hot spring proved of great use. The water that came boiling from the earth cooled off rapidly, but it was not yet frozen when it reached the side of Castle Howard, and they could make use of it.

The very first morning they found their new boat, of which they were so proud, hard and fast with ten inches of solid ice all around it. Albert suggested leaving it there.

”We have no need of it so long as the lake is covered with ice,”

he said, ”and when the ice melts it will be released.”

But d.i.c.k looked a little farther. The ice might press in on it and crush it, and hence Albert and he cut it out with axes, after which they put it in the lee of the cabin. Meanwhile, when they wished to reach the traps on the farther side of the lake, they crossed it on the ice, and, presuming that the cold might last long, they easily made a rude sledge which they used in place of the canoe.

”If we can't go through the water, we can at least go over it,”

said Albert.

While the great cold lasted, a period of about two weeks, the boys went on no errands except to their traps. The cold was so intense that often they could hear the logs of Castle Howard contracting with a sound like pistol shots. Then they would build the fire high and sit comfortably before it. Fortunately, the valley afforded plenty of fuel. Both boys wished now that they had a few books, but books were out of the question, and they sought always to keep themselves busy with the tasks that their life in the valley entailed upon them. Both knew that this was best.

The cold was so great that even the wild animals suffered from it. The timber wolves, despite their terrible lessons, were driven by it down the valley, and at night a stray one now and then would howl mournfully near the cabin.

”He's a robber and would like to be a murderer,” Albert would say, ”but he probably smells this jerked buffalo meat that I'm cooking and I'm sorry for him.”

But the wolves were careful to keep out of rifle shot.

d.i.c.k made one trip up the valley and found about fifty buffaloes sheltered in a deep ravine and cl.u.s.tering close together for warmth. They were quite thin, as the gra.s.s, although it had been protected by the snow, was very scanty at that period of the year. d.i.c.k could have obtained a number of good robes, but he spared them.

”Maybe I won't be so soft-hearted when the spring comes and you are fatter,” he said.