Marooned in the Forest: The Story of a Primitive Fight for Life

by A. Hyatt Verrill

My first idea was to cut notches in a stick, one for each day, but I at once gave this up as impracticable, for I foresaw that the numerous notches representing the days I had already passed in the woods would prove confusing, and that this method would merely enable me to tell how many days had passed and would fail to give me an idea of the day of the week or the month. Moreover, to carry sticks for this purpose would be a nuisance, and after some time I decided to make a rude calendar by means of beaver tendons. My scheme was very simple and consisted of using two tendons, one for the week-days and the other for the months. Each day I would tie a knot in the week string and when the seventh day was reached I would tie a large knot. Then when the days made up a month I would tie a knot in the month string. To think was to act, and selecting a smooth, long tendon I tied knots to represent the seven days I had already been in the forest, with the last knot double the size of the others, and as the canoe had been wrecked on Wednesday, the 2d of August, I tied nine knots in my month string, which gave Wednesday as the day of the week and the ninth day of the month as the correct date. I could easily remember the month itself and I had not the least expectation of being in the wilderness long enough to require a means of keeping track of future months, but as it turned out, many a month string was tied into knots ere I came to my journey’s end.

For several days I tramped onward without adventure or incident, save that I fared ill for meat and was obliged to depend almost entirely upon the mussels in the river and the fungus in the woods. Over and over again I gave thanks to the rabbit which had first led me to this supply of food, for without the fungus I would have gone to bed hungry on many a night. Several times I saw hares and once or twice I flushed partridges. I repeatedly tried to kill these creatures with my bow and arrows, but I failed each time. Moreover, the grouse seemed wild and suspicious and I could not approach closely enough to snare them, while the brooks I passed, although alive with trout, had no deep pools or isolated basins which I could bail out to secure the fish. Anxious as I was to get out of the woods without delay, my longing for better food finally overcame my impatience and I decided to make a halt for a day and endeavor to trap or snare some sort of game.

Accordingly, I made camp at midday and spent the afternoon preparing twitch-ups and deadfalls. It was while setting one of the latter that an accident gave me an idea which proved of the utmost value and made my lot far easier. Bending over and endeavoring to lift a log, my belt parted, and to my chagrin I discovered that the stitches which held the buckle had ripped out. Holding it in my hand and thinking of a way of lashing it to the leather again, it suddenly occurred to me that in this bit of metal I had the means of fashioning a fish-hook. The buckle was a fairly large one, with a strong, sharp tongue, and one end of this was already formed in an eye. All that was necessary was to detach the tongue from the buckle-frame and bend it into a hooked form. Instantly the deadfall was forgotten and I set to work hammering the buckle with stones and bending it back and forth in order to remove the tongue.

The amount of labor which was required to accomplish this simple matter is almost incredible. My fingers were bruised and torn, my hands were cramped, and my arms ached ere the buckle-frame finally parted and the tongue was free. Even more difficult was the task of bending this, for my only tools were the water-worn pebbles. Time and again the bit of metal slipped and I yelled with pain as my crude stone hammer struck my fingertips. At last I hit upon the plan of heating it and placed the tongue amid the hot coals of my fire. While it was heating I cudgeled my brains to devise some method of holding the hot metal while bending it, and at last hit upon what I considered a very clever scheme indeed. With my knife I cut a notch in a piece of green wood and in the center of this dug out, with great labor, a little depression at right angles to the notch. The metal was now red-hot, and, carefully lifting it with a green stick, I laid it in the notch with its center above the hollow. Then a chip of stone, which I had already selected, was placed against the steel and with a rock as a hammer I drove down upon the metal until it bent into the recess below and took its shape. The steel bent so readily when hot and the whole operation was so simple that I mentally called myself a fool for spending so much time and mashing my fingers trying to bend the metal when cold by means of stones. As soon as the buckle-tongue was bent I threw water upon it to cool it and examined the result of my ingenuity with the greatest pride. Undoubtedly it was a hook, but doubts assailed me as to its value for catching fish, for it was large, coarse, and clumsy and was scarcely better than an enormous bent pin. However, I had seen trout caught with bent pins and the only way to prove whether or not my trouble had been for naught was to test the hook. It required but a short time to gather a quantity of fine roots and tie these together in a line, but I found it a hard matter to secure a root fine and strong enough to pass through the eye of my hook, which had been squeezed out of shape while bending it. Again the useful beaver tendons came into mind and with one of these I readily attached the crude hook to my line. Equipped with this primitive tackle and with worms, which I found beneath stones, for bait, I hurried to the neighboring stream and dropped the baited hook into a shaded, deep pool among the rocks. Hardly had the hook touched water before a silvery body flashed, and by the sharp, hard tug on the line I knew I had hooked a trout. Fearful lest my captive should slip from the barbless hook, and tingling with excitement, I pulled in the line; but I was doomed to disappointment. Scarcely had his flashing body reached the surface of the water when, with a flap of his tail, the trout leaped into the air, shook himself free, and dropped back into the pool while I stood gazing stupidly at the empty hook dangling at the end of the line. I was filled with bitter disappointment, for I had been confident that the fish was firmly hooked, and for several moments I could not overcome my chagrin at the loss of the fine trout. However, I had learned patience and perseverance, and, again baiting the hook, I tried my luck once more. Again came the sharp tug at the line as a fish took the bait, and this time, instead of pulling slowly on the line, I gave a quick, hard jerk and to my intense joy saw the flashing trout flung from the pool and landed safely upon the mossy bank. Now that I had learned the trick, I found little difficulty in securing several more trout, and while one out of every two or three managed to escape, yet I had plenty of fish for my meal by the time I had stopped. With a supply of trout thus assured, I had no need to worry over my food in the future, but I was terribly afraid of breaking my line and losing the precious hook, and to avoid all chance of this I spent the remaining hours of daylight in carefully braiding a better line from fine, selected hemlock roots.

My thoughts were so fully occupied with fishing that I almost forgot about the traps and snares I had set, and I was on the point of again setting out on my tramp when I remembered them. One deadfall had been sprung and contained a tiny ground-squirrel, but a skunk or fisher-cat had visited it before me and only a few bones and a little fur of the chipmunk remained in the trap. My twitch-ups were far more successful and in one I found a fine, fat hare and in another a red squirrel.

These I decided to use for my midday meal, and, well pleased with my prowess as a trapper and fisherman, I continued on my way.

For some time I made good progress, but soon the country grew rough and more mountainous, while the river flowed for long distances between rocky, precipitous banks which compelled me to make my way through the forest. Here it was also difficult traveling, for fallen trees were scattered everywhere, the ground was rocky and full of holes and clefts, and I was compelled to go far out of my way in order to avoid such obstructions. So hard was the way that I longed again to be able to follow the shores of the river and made frequent trips to the edge of the bank, hoping each time to find the bluffs were passed and that I could again travel in the open beside the stream. On one such occasion I was standing at the verge of a high, steep bank with the river tumbling and roaring in masses of foam among the jagged rocks far below. Suddenly I felt the earth give way beneath me and with a cry of terror I clutched frantically at the bushes about me. With a roar and rumble a great slice of the bank fell crashing down to the river. The branch which I had seized snapped, I felt myself slipping to certain death, and the next instant found myself poised in midair above the precipice. Although the branch had snapped off, it still supported me, and, sick with fear and with pounding heart, I drew myself, hand over hand, up the edge of the bank and fell panting on the earth.

Terribly shaken and helplessly weak from the shock, I lay trembling upon the ground, for I had missed death, or terrible injuries, by a hair’s breadth. I had been saved as by a miracle, and I breathed a prayer of thanks that Providence had guided my hand to grasp a branch which was strong enough to withstand the terrific strain of my falling body. Then, having in a measure regained my breath and self-control, and curious to see the sapling which had saved my life, I rose unsteadily to my feet and cautiously approached the precipitous bank. Lying prone on my stomach, I peered over the edge and a wave of faintness swept over me as I gazed down a the tumbling rapids and jagged black rock at the foot of the sheer decline. Close at hand was the slender growth which had proved my salvation; bent, bruised, and drooping from my struggles, but still intact. It was scarcely as large as my finger. Filled with amazement that such a tiny bush could have supported me, I examined it with minute care. The wood was cracked and broken in a dozen spots, the bark was split and separated from the wood, but it was still as tough as a leathern thong, flexible as whalebone, and fibrous as a rope. Carefully cutting the branch, I withdrew to a point of safety to investigate its marvelous strength. Twist it, bend it, or pull it as I would, I could make no impression upon it, and it came at once to my mind that here, indeed, was a natural rope of immense strength and which would be of inestimable value to me. I also discovered that the strength was all in the bark, and by stripping off slender pieces I found that with them I could form cords, threads, and lines equal to hempen strands. Once again an accident had led to a valuable discovery, and as the shrub was abundant everywhere along the river’s bank I knew that I now possessed an inexhaustible supply of lines and ropes which I could use for numberless purposes. Not till long afterward did I learn that this was “moosewood”; that its properties were known to every woodsman, hunter, and trapper of the wilderness, and that to the Indians it served every purpose of string and rope and was in constant use a thousand and one ways. I was still so upset by my terrible experience that I abandoned any idea of proceeding farther that day, and made camp a short distance away beside a little mountain stream. Fascinated by the tough and flexible character of the moosewood bark, I spent hours braiding and twisting it into cords of various sizes, and it was so far superior to the hemlock root that I made a new and better bowstring and a new fish-line from the material.

Then having secured a good rest and having quite recovered from my fright and shock I tried my hand at fishing. It took me but a short time to catch a number of trout, as they were abundant in the brook and I had now learned the knack of jerking them from the water so quickly that they could not flap loose from the hook. The next morning I resumed my tramp and for five days walk steadily onward without any incident worth of record.

With every mile the river increased in width, sand-bars and rocky islets rose in its midst, the current became less swift, and by the sixth day the stream stretched in a broad, sluggish expanse of silver a quarter of a mile wide.