The Essential Writings of James Willard Schultz. James Willard Schultz
the river. But that did not daunt us. The stream was wide there, running in a still sweep over a long bar; and we crossed, and in our hurry, splashed ourselves until we were wet above the waist. Then, after all, the grouse rose long before we came anywhere near it, and this time flew on and on until lost to sight!
Our disappointment was too keen to be put into words. Dripping wet and as miserable a pair of boys as ever were, we stood there in the cold snow and looked sadly at each other. "Oh, well, come on," said Pitamakan. "What is done is done. We will now get the wood we want and make a fire to dry ourselves."
He led off, walked to a half-fallen fir, and from the under side broke off just what we were looking for—a hard, dry spike about twice the diameter of a lead-pencil and a foot or more in length. That did seem to be good luck, and our spirits rose. We went out to the shore of the river, where I was set to rounding off the base of the spike and sharpening the point, first by rubbing it on a coarse-grained rock, and then smoothing it with a flake of obsidian. I ruined the edge of the first piece by handling it too vigorously; the brittle stone had to be forced slowly and diagonally along the place to be cut.
Again and again it rose
Pitamakan, meanwhile, was hunting a suitable piece of wood for the drill to work in. Hard wood, he had heard the old people say, was necessary for this, and here the only growth of the kind was birch.
By the time I got the drill shaped, he had found none that was dry, and I was glad to help in the search, for I was nearly frozen from standing still so long in my wet clothes. Up and down the river we went, and back into the forest, examining every birch that appeared to be dead. Every one that we found was rotten, or only half dry. It was by the merest chance that we found the very thing: a beaver-cutting of birch, cast by the spring freshet under a projecting ledge of rock, where it was protected from the rains. It was almost a foot in diameter and several feet long. We rubbed a coarse stone against the centre of it until the place was flat and a couple of inches wide, and in that started a small hole with the obsidian. This was slow work, for the glasslike substance constantly broke under the pressure needed to make it cut into the wood. It was late in the day when the gouging was finished, and we prepared to put our tools to the test.
This was an occasion for prayer. Pitamakan so earnestly entreated his gods to pity us, to make our work successful, and thus save our lives, that, unsympathetic as I was with his beliefs, I could not help being moved. I wanted to be stoical; to keep up a brave appearance to the last; but this pathetic prayer to heathen gods, coming as it did when I was weak from hunger and exposure, was too much. To this day I remember the exact words of it, too long to repeat here. I can translate only the closing sentence: "Also, have pity on us because of our dear people on the other side of the range, who are even now weeping in their lodges because we do not return to them."
When he had finished the prayer, Pitamakan took the drill in the palms of his hands and set the point of it in the small, rough hole in the birch. We had already gathered some dry birch bark, and I held some of it, shredded into a fluffy mass, close round the drill and the pole.
"Now, fire come!" Pitamakan exclaimed, and began to twirl the drill between his hands, at the same time pressing it firmly down in the hole.
But no smoke came. What was the reason? He stopped and raised the drill; we felt of it and the hole; both were very hot, and I suggested that we take turns drilling, changing about in the least possible time. We tried it, and oh, how anxiously we watched for success, drilling and drilling for our very lives, drilling turn about until our muscles were so strained that we could not give the stick another twirl! Then we dropped back and stared at each other. Our experiment had failed. Night was coming on. Our wet clothing was beginning to freeze, and there was the river between us and the shelter of our cave.
The outlook seemed hopeless, and I said so. Pitamakan said nothing; his eyes had a strange, vacant expression. "We can do nothing," I repeated. "Right here we have to die."
Still he did not answer, or even look at me, and I said to myself, "He has gone mad!"
Chapter IV
"If they will not do," Pitamakan muttered, rising stiffly, while the ice on his leggings crackled, "why, I'll cut off a braid of my hair."
I was now sure that our troubles had weakened his mind; no Indian in his right senses would think of cutting off his hair.
"Pitamakan! What is the trouble with you?" I asked, looking up anxiously at him.
"Why, nothing is the matter," he replied. "Nothing is the matter. We must now try to work the drill with a bow. If our moccasin strings are too rotten to bear the strain, I'll have to make a bow cord by cutting off some of my hair and braiding it."
It was a great relief to know that he was sane enough, but I had little faith in this new plan, and followed listlessly as he went here and there, testing the branches of willow and birch. Finally, he got from the river shore one stone that was large and smooth, and another that had a sharp edge. Then, scraping the snow away from the base of a birch shoot a couple of inches in diameter, he laid the smooth stone at its base. Next he bade me bend the shoot close down on the smooth stone, while with the sharp edge of the other he hit the strained wood fibre a few blows. In this way he easily severed the stem. Cutting off the top of the sapling in the same manner, he had a bow about three feet in length; a rough, clumsy piece of wood, it is true, but resilient.
As my moccasin strings were buckskin and much stronger than Pitamakan's cow-leather ones, we used one of mine for the bowstring. We now carried the base stick and drill back from the creek into the thick timber, gathered a large bunch of birch bark and a pile of fine and coarse twigs, and made ready for this last attempt to save ourselves.
We hesitated to begin; uncertainty as to the result was better than sure knowledge of failure, but while we waited we began to freeze. It was a solemn and anxious moment when Pitamakan set the point of the drill in the hole, made one turn of the bowstring round its centre, and held it in place by pressing down with the palm of his left hand on the tip. With his right hand he grasped the bow, and waiting until I had the shredded bark in place round the hole, he once more started the coyote prayer song and began sawing the bow forth and back, precisely the motion of a cross-cut saw biting into a standing tree.
The wrap of the string caused the drill to twirl with amazing rapidity, and at the third or fourth saw he gave a howl of pain and dropped the outfit. I had no need to ask why. The drill tip had burned his hand; when he held it out a blister was already puffing up.
We changed places, and I gathered the skirt of my capote in a bunch to protect my hand. I began to work the bow, faster and faster, until the drill moaned intermittently, like a miniature buzz-saw. In a moment or two I thought that I saw a very faint streak of smoke stealing up between my companion's fingers.
He was singing again, and did not hear my exclamation as I made sure that my eyes had not deceived me. Smoke actually was rising. I sawed harder and harder; more and more smoke arose, but there was no flame.
"Why not?" I cried. "Oh, why don't you burn?"
Pitamakan's eyes were glaring anxiously, greedily at the blue curling vapor. I continued to saw with all possible rapidity, but still there was no flame; instead, the smoke began to diminish in volume. A chill ran through me as I saw it fail.
I was on the point of giving up, of dropping the bow and saying that this was the end of our trail, when the cause of the failure was made plain to me. Pitamakan was pressing the shredded bark too tight round the drill and into the hole; there could be no fire where there was no air. "Raise your fingers!" I shouted. "Loosen up the bark!"
I had to repeat what I said before he understood and did as he was told. Instantly the bark burst into flame.
"Fire! Fire! Fire!" I cried, as I hastily snatched out the drill.