Heno became very fond of the Spicer children, and upon his visits to their home they would importune their father to tell again the tale of Heno's midnight raid upon his venison, the Indian accompanying the narrator with expressive pantomime, which much delighted himself and his auditors.
V. STORY OF AN HONEST INDIAN.
The inhabitants along the north shore of Lake Superior are nearly all Indians, who are largely dependent upon the fisheries for their living; when these fail or are good, so is their general condition. It has been my good fortune, writes Stanley Du Bois, to spend many summers there.
My custom is to get a large Mackinac boat, the white man's improvement on the birch bark canoe, to put into it my tent, stores, camping and other equipment, and, together with a couple of Indians, to sail along the north shore of the great lake, usually making a new camp every night, not bound by any hard and fast rule to do so; staying longer if it is agreeable or too stormy to make sailing safe or pleasant. Sometimes I have to anchor and ride out a heavy swell, for there are hundreds of miles of shore line where the rocky cliffs come down to the water's edge, and if there is any surf there is no such thing as landing from a boat. One evening, having made a landing, pitched the tent, and had a good supper, while sitting alone, the Indians busy about the boat hauled up on the narrow beach, a huge dog came stalking up to me. He was in a pitiable condition. Evidently he had been in a fight with a bear or lynx, or some other fierce, powerful creature, for nearly half his scalp had been torn loose from his skull and hung down over his face, completely blinding one eye. At first I was uncertain how to act, but I soon saw that he meant no harm, really in dog language he very plainly gave me to understand that he looked to me for relief. Going into the tent I got a needle and thread, and together we went down to the water's edge, where I washed the dirt and vermin out of the great wound, and then placing the skin back where it belonged sewed it up. The Indians pricked a quantity of balsam blisters, and after smearing that plentifully over the edges of the wound, we gave the dog his supper. During the night he disappeared.
The Indians and myself finished the season according to our pleasure, and the incident of the dog was fast becoming a fading memory. Two years later, with these same two Indians, I was again sailing along the north shore of Lake Superior. Seeing a little wooden pier put out into the water we headed for it. As soon as we came near, some twenty-five or thirty half-wild, savage dogs stormed out on the pier and threatened to eat us alive! An elderly Indian came down from the shore, and with a stout club beat them mercilessly and drove them to the shore; all except one, who, changing his bark of anger and defiance to yelps of delight, fawned and whined on me most unaccountably, and despite blows and commands refused to leave.
"Now I know who fix my dog; come to my house. I too wish to thank you as well as my dog." That was the greeting I received, and the first I had heard of the mutilated dog of two years previous.
The house was a log hut of one room only on the ground floor, with a low, dark loft above; no luxuries and few comforts anywhere. His wife busied herself to get us something to eat; it didn't take long, and when dinner was called we sat down to the table. Reverently bowing their heads he asked God's blessing on what was before us, a broiled whitefish and a bucket of water, that was all, for the season's fishing so far had been a failure. The man and children could speak fairly good English, his wife could not speak it at all. After our meal I gave him a little bag of smoking tobacco. It was the first he had used for several months, and you can hardly know how happy he was. Moved by its influence and of gratitude for my care to his dog, he told me a strange experience that had come into his life. I have taken the liberty of altering his broken English and idioms into plain talk, but the facts are just as he told me that beautiful summer day, with the hum of the wind through the great pine trees over and back of his home, and the wash of the waves on the rocky shore in front. But for the little group around that home it was a grand solitude for hundreds of miles in every direction. This is his story:
"Some thirty years ago there came to my cabin a young Englishman, not a hunter or a fisherman, but one who would sit for hours at a time on that old bent tree yonder, and make the strangest and sweetest music I ever heard. I never saw an instrument like his. He made me forget myself, and sometimes when he would play I would cry just like a dog. Then he would put that aside and go off into the woods alone, taking with him a stranger and even more curious instrument. What he was trying to do I do not know, but he looked into it, and then made marks in a book. I said he went alone, but that is hardly true; no white man went with him, only one of my little boys. They are men grown now, and have families of their own. One day a sailboat came to my little pier, and a gentleman called out, 'Hello Baker! you must go back with me right away,' and after a few minutes' talk he called out to me, 'I am going away, but will be back again. Keep what is mine till I return,' and they sailed away.
"That was more than thirty years ago, and he has not returned yet. If you care to see what he left with me I will show it to you."
We went back into the cabin, and his wife climbed into the loft overhead and passed down a violin case, a theodolite, and a small, silver-trimmed leather grip. Opening the case he took out as fine a violin as it has ever been my pleasure to handle. There was no name of maker or owner on it. The strings were loose, but after tuning it up as best I could after so long a time out of use, I found it had a marvelously pure, sweet, strong tone. The theodolite was of London make, and had seen much hard usage, but was in good condition. Opening the grip, which was not locked, we took out and laid on the table a surveyor's memorandum book, a few pencils, a silver telescopic pen holder with a gold pen in its end, and an intaglio seal cut in a red stone in the other end, the letter B, some postage stamps, some sheets of paper and envelopes, and a small copy of Shakespeare's plays. Turning to the fly leaf of the book I read the name in pencil, "S. Baker."