Fire in the Woods / Illustrated

by James De Mille

They flung down their baskets and poles, and then flung themselves down too, and stretched their weary limbs upon the ground. Solomon took off his basket, and put it down in a more leisurely fashion, and took up more time in depositing his own aged frame upon the ground.

“Well, boys,” said Bart, after a short time of rest, in which he had stretched himself and yawned to his heart’s content, “it’s all very well to sit down and rest, but it’s rather dark here under the trees, and it’s going to be darker, and we can’t-ex-pect to get to sleep for at least a couple of hours. How can we manage to exist, sitting here in the dark? I’m sure I can’t for one; so let’s make a fire.”

The proposal was at once adopted with the utmost eagerness. They had all felt a certain degree of cheerlessness, and did not know exactly what the cause was; but now they saw that it was the darkness, and they knew that any friendly firelight, however small, would make all the difference in the world.

They now distributed themselves in different directions for the sake of procuring fuel. Under that pine forest it was not very easy to find any. At length, by dint of careful search and unwearying industry, they succeeded in gathering a very respectable amount, which they deposited in a heap near the place where they had first sat down. The wood which they thus gathered was not very promising. What was dry was rotten twigs, and what was sound was green wood; but they did not complain. In order to find a fuel that was midway between these two extremes, they went off after pine branches. These they cut from the smaller trees with their pocket knives. Then they gathered some pine cones and bits of dry bark, and with these succeeded in kindling a fire. Over this they put the dry twigs, then the pine branches, and last of all the green wood. The fire thus carefully prepared was quite a success; the flames rose up merrily, and soon the friendly blaze illumined the gathering gloom.

Around this they now sat, and partook of their evening repast. The repast consisted of ham sandwiches, and their drink was water from the neighboring brook.

While they were seated round the fire they noticed that their guide drew forth a black junk bottle, and began to take large and frequent draughts from it. The smell showed them plainly that it was spirits, and this discovery filled them all with uneasiness. They were afraid that their guide would make himself drunk at the very outset of their expedition; and if so, what could they do with a drunken Indian? Sam had probably procured the villanous “fire-water” when he crossed with them to Chatham, before starting, and had brought it here with the express purpose of swallowing the whole of it that night.

The effects of the intoxicating liquor were soon only too apparent. He began to talk with such volubility that his broken English was scarcely intelligible. As far as they could make out, he was trying to tell them about the best places there were for fishing and shooting, and illustrating his remarks with incoherent anecdotes about various parties which he had accompanied through these forests.

But as he went on he grew more and more excited, and at length gave up broken English, and spoke to them in his own language. Of course this made him totally unintelligible. There was now something that seemed to them uncanny in the sight of this man, as he sat there, half out of his senses, talking at them vociferously and volubly in his unintelligible jargon. It put an end to all their own conversation, and to all their pleasure. It was bad enough to be here; but to be here with a drunken Indian, a crazy savage, was too much.

But the Indian kept on. He still applied the bottle to his lips at short intervals, and continued his wild gabble as before. At first, he had been speaking to them, and now he seemed to be addressing his remarks to space; for his eyes were not any longer turned towards them, but were rolling in all directions,—sometimes resting on the trees, sometimes on the fire. He grew more and more excited. Holding the bottle in one hand, he swung it around, and with the other he made energetic gestures, which he used to give emphasis to his statements. His voice also gradually changed. At first it was natural; and so long as he spoke English, there had been nothing in it to excite particular attention; but when he broke forth in his native language, it grew deeper and more guttural, and stranger and more barbaric.