The Eyes of the Woods: A Story of the Ancient Wilderness

by Joseph A. Altsheler

He was surprised to see that the storm had not yet stopped, but he was not alarmed. The two fires were still smouldering, and the dead wood that he had heaped up was sufficient to last many days. It was true that he had only the wild turkey for food, but he was sure, in time, to discover other resources. He had seen the proof over and over again, that, for the time at least, he was a favorite of the greater powers. He was too modest to think it due to any particular merit of his own, but it seemed to him that he had been chosen as an instrument, and, for that reason, he was being preserved through every hardship and danger.

Secure in his belief, which was more than a belief, a conviction rather, he began to make a home for himself in his tiny valley, which was not more than fifty feet across, and above which the hills, steep like the side of a house, rose three or four hundred feet. His first precaution was to build the fires anew, not with a high flame, but with a slow steady burning that would make great beds of coals, glowing with heat. Then he examined the pass by which he had come, to find it choked with seven or eight feet of snow, and he looked next at the one by which the deer had gone, to discover that it was much like the first, leading a distance that was yet indefinite to him, as he did not care to follow it through the deep snow to its end.

Shaking the snow from the painted robe he came back to the covert and waited with as much patience as he could summon. Now he missed greatly his four comrades, and their talk. With them the time would have passed easily, but since they were not there he must do the best he could without them. The problem of food which he had resolutely pushed away, forced itself back again. A big, powerful body such as his was like an active engine. It required much fuel. There would be no food but animal food, and he was in no mood for killing an animal now. But he could not hide from himself the fact that it must be done, sooner or later.

On the second day he went through the pass by which the deer had gone, beating down the snow under his feet, until it was hard enough to sustain him, and, after about two miles of such difficult traveling, came upon fairly level ground. Here, hunting about, he surprised several rabbits in their deep nests, and killed them with blows of his rifle muzzle.

The hunt took nearly all day, and, when he returned to the cove with his game, night was coming. He was surprised to find how welcome the place was to him and how much it looked like a home. There was his sheltered alcove, with the wall of dead wood in front of it, and there were two heaps of coals sending their friendly glow to him through the cold dusk.

It was a home, and it was more. It was a refuge and a fortress. He had been guided to it by the greater powers, and he should value it for all it had afforded him, warmth, shelter and protection from his foes. He was not one to be lacking in gratitude or appreciation, and he sent admiring glances about his well, for it was more like a well than a valley. Lonely it might be, but bodily comforts it offered in abundance to such as Henry.

He cleaned the rabbits and hung them up in the alcove, knowing that their bodies would freeze hard in the night, and thus would be preserved, giving him with the wild turkey a supply of food sufficient for two or three days.

He was awakened the second night by cries, faint but very fierce, and he knew they were made by wolves howling. The ferocity, however, was not for him, as during that singular period his feeling of kinship for the animals extended even to the wolf. He knew that they howled because of hunger. The deep snow was hard on the wolves, making it difficult to find or pursue their prey, and they sent forth the angry lament because they were famished.

Henry merely drew the painted robe more closely about his body, looked contentedly at the glow from the two fine beds of coals, closed his eyes once more and went to sleep. He did not look for wolves in his well, although he heard them howling again the next night, the note plaintive and fierce alike with the call of intense hunger. The fourth day, he went out through the pass and killed more rabbits, adding them to his store. He saw a deer floundering in the deep snow, but he would not shoot it. The time might come when he would slay a deer, but he could not do it that week.

Now he began to study the skies. He knew that the premature snow, deep as it was, could not last long, and, likely enough, it would be followed by heavy rain. Then the snow would certainly pour in a deluge down the hillsides, and the water might rage in a torrent in the ravine. His well would be flooded and he would have to take to flight, but it would be no harder on pursued than on pursuers.