CHAPTER I THE TENDERFOOT

In the semi-darkness of daybreak a boy of fourteen jumped from a Pullman sleeper and slipped a quarter into the hand of the dusky porter who handed down his luggage.

“You are sure this is Upper Chain?” he inquired.

“’Spects it is, boss, but I ain’t no ways sho’. Ain’t never been up this way afore,” replied the porter, yawning sleepily.

The boy vainly strove to pierce the night mist which shrouded everything in ghostly gray, hoping to see the conductor or a brakeman, but he could see barely half the length of the next Pullman. A warning rumble at the head of the long train admonished him that he must act at once; he must make up [12] his mind to stay or he must climb aboard again, and that quickly.

The long night ride had been a momentous event to him. He had slept little, partly from the novelty of his first experience in a sleeping car, and partly from the excitement of actually being on his way into the big north woods, the Mecca of all his desires and daydreams. Consequently he had kept a fairly close record of the train’s running time, dozing off between stations but waking instantly whenever the train came to a stop. According to his reckoning he should now be at Upper Chain. He had given the porter strict orders to call him twenty minutes before reaching his destination, but to his supreme disgust he had had to perform that service for the darkey. That worthy had then been sent forward to find the conductor and make sure of their whereabouts. Unsuccessful, he had returned just in time to hand down the lad’s duffle.

Now, as the preliminary jerk ran down the heavy train, the boy once more looked at his watch, and made up his mind. If the train was on time, and he felt sure that it was, this [13] was Upper Chain, the junction where he was to change for the final stage of his journey. He would stay.

The dark, heavy sleepers slowly crept past as the train gathered way, till suddenly he found himself staring for a moment at the red and green tail lights. Then they grew dim and blinked out in the enveloping fog. He shivered a bit, for the first time realizing how cold it was at this altitude before daybreak. And, to be quite honest, there was just a little feeling of loneliness as he made out the dim black wall of evergreens on one side and the long string of empty freight cars shutting him in on the other. The whistle of the laboring locomotive shrieked out of the darkness ahead, reverberating with an eery hollowness from mountain to mountain. Involuntarily he shivered again. Then, with a boyish laugh at his momentary loss of nerve, he shouldered his duffle bag and picked up his fishing-rod.

“Must be a depot here somewhere, and it’s up to me to find it,” he said aloud. “Wonder what I tipped that stupid porter for, anyway! Dad would say I’m easy. Guess I am, all right. Br-r-r-r, who says this is July?”

[14] Trudging along the ties he soon came to the end of the string of empties and, a little way to his right, made out the dim outlines of a building. This proved to be the depot. A moment later he was in the bare, stuffy little waiting-room, in the middle of which a big stove was radiating a welcome warmth.

On a bench at one side sat two roughly-dressed men, who glanced up as the boy entered. One was in the prime of vigorous manhood. Broad of shoulder, large of frame, he was spare with the leanness of the professional woodsman, who lives up to the rule that takes nothing useless on the trail and, therefore, cannot afford to carry superfluous flesh. The gray flannel shirt, falling open at the neck, exposed a throat which, like his face, was roughened and bronzed by the weather.

The boy caught the quick glance of the keen blue eyes which, for all their kindly twinkle, bored straight through him. Instinctively he felt that here was one of the very men his imagination had so often pictured, a man skilled in woodcraft, accustomed to meeting danger, clear-headed, resourceful—in fact just such a man as was [15] Deerslayer, whose rifle had so often roused the echoes in these very woods.

The man beside him was short, thick-set, black-haired and mare-browed. His skin was swarthy, with just a tinge of color to hint at Indian ancestry among his French forebears. He wore the large check mackinaw of the French Canadian lumberman. Against the bench beside him rested a double-bladed axe. A pair of beady black eyes burned their way into the boy’s consciousness. They were not good eyes; they seemed to carry a hint of hate and evil, an unspoken threat. The man, taking in the new khaki suit of the boy and the unsoiled case of the fishing-rod, grunted contemptuously and spat a mouthful of tobacco juice into the box of sawdust beside the stove. The boy flushed and turned to meet the kindly, luminous eyes of the other man.

“If you please, is this Upper Chain?” he inquired.

“Sure, son,” was the prompt response. “Reckon we must hev come in on th’ same train, only I was up forward. Guess you’re bound for Woodcraft Camp. So’m I, so let’s shake. My name’s Jim Everly—‘Big Jim’ [16] they call me—and I’m goin’ in t’ guide fer Dr. Merriam th’ rest o’ th’ summer and try to teach you youngsters a few o’ th’ first principles. What might yer name be an’ whar be yer from?”

“Walter Upton, but the boys mostly call me ‘Walt.’ My home is in New York,” replied the boy.

“Never hit th’ trail t’ th’ big woods afore, did yer?” inquired the big guide, rising to stretch.

“No,” said Walter, and then added eagerly: “But I’ve read lots and lots of books about them, and I guess I could most find my way along a trail even if I am a city tenderfoot. I’ve paddled a canoe some, and I know all about the habits of wild animals and how to build a fire and——”

“Son,” interrupted Big Jim, “stop right thar! Forget it—all this rot you’ve been a-readin’. Woodcraft never yet was larned out o’ books, and it never will be. I reckon you an’ me are goin’ t’ hitch up together fine, an’ when yer go back t’ yer daddy this fall yer’ll be able t’ take him out in th’ tall timbers an’ show him a few stunts what ain’t [17] down in th’ program o’ city schools, but what every cottontail born in the north woods larns the second day he gets his eyes open. Now yer jes’ fergit all this stuff yer’ve been a-readin’ and stick t’ me; we’ll git along fine. I’ll make a woodsman o’ yer yer dad will be proud o’. Let’s have a look outside t’ see how the weather is.”

As he followed the big fellow out onto the platform Walter felt his cheeks burn at this wholesale condemnation of his treasured books, one of which, “A Complete Guide to Woodcraft,” was at that moment within easy reach in the top of his duffle bag. Despite his natural admiration for this big guide, to whom the mountains, lakes and woods were as an open book, and his unbounded delight in having made a good impression, Walter was not yet willing to overthrow his former idols for this new one, and he was independent enough to stand by his opinions until convinced that he was wrong.

“Have you ever read any of them, Mr. Everly?” he inquired courteously.

“Me? Read them books?” Big Jim’s laugh rolled out infectiously. “What would [18] I read ’em for, sonny? I’ve seen some o’ them book-writers in th’ woods, and thet’s enough fer me. Lordy!” and again Jim’s hearty laugh rolled forth.

Walter laughed a little too, but deep in his heart he resolved that he would yet show Big Jim that there was some good in the despised books. To change the subject he inquired about the low-browed owner of the axe back by the fire.

“Him? Why, thet’s Red Pete, a French canuck with some Indian in him, an’ th’ meanest man in th’ mountains,” replied Big Jim.

The mist had begun to burn off. Even as they watched they saw it roll in great tattered masses up the side of the opposite mountain. With the coming of the sun Walter was able to take note of his surroundings, and his eager eyes drank in the scene so strange to him but so familiar to his companion. It was one of those few moments which come to all of us, when we experience sensations which so impress themselves upon the memory that never are they forgotten. Walter felt a thrill that made him tingle from head to foot and, from [19] sheer delight, clinch his hands till the nails nearly bit into the flesh. Since he was big enough to read “Deerslayer” and “The Pathfinder” and Captain Mayne Reid’s fascinating tales of adventure in forest and on the plains he had lived in an imaginary world of his own—a wonderful world, where he penetrated vast wildernesses, voyaged on great rivers and climbed snow-capped mountains. Now he was really in the great woods; his dreams were coming true in a measure.

Indeed, it was a scene to stir any red-blooded boy. A gentle breeze, moving across an unsuspected lake, rolled before it great billowing masses of vapor. The sun, just rising above the eastern hills, drew the mist swiftly up the mountainsides in broken, detached masses that eddied, separated, came together and in an incredibly short time dissipated in thin, clear air, till naught remained save in the deepest hollows not yet penetrated by the sun’s rays. Walter drew a long breath.

“Oh!” he gasped, and again, “Oh!”

Big Jim looked at him curiously, while a sincere liking twinkled in his blue eyes.

“Never see a sunrise in th’ mountains [20] afore, did yer, sonny?” he asked. “Jes’ yer wait till yer see a sunup from th’ top of old Baldy, and watch forty lakes throw off their night clothes all at once.”

Sordid enough was the scene now revealed close at hand in the clear morning light, the ulcer of so-called civilization, to be seen wherever man has pushed the outposts of commercialism into the great forests. A dozen log houses and a few ugly frame buildings, the latter unpainted for the most part, but with one a glaring red and another a washed-out blue, dotted an irregular clearing on either side of the railroad. Close by, the tail of a log jam choked a narrow river, while the tall iron stack of a sawmill towered above the rough board roof that afforded some protection to the engine and saws. Off to the right glistened the end of a lake of which the river was the outlet, its margin a mass of stark, drowned timber. The peculiar odor of wet sawdust filled the air. A sawdust road threaded its way among the scattered buildings, and all about were unsightly piles of slabs, heaps of bark and mill waste.

But to Walter it was all fascinating. The [21] sky-scrapers of his native city seemed not half so wonderful as these moss and clay chinked cabins. He pinched himself to make quite sure he was awake, that it was all real. An engine and single dingy coach were backing down a siding.

“Thar’s our train, son,” said his companion. “Better stow yer duffle aboard. It won’t pull out for half an hour, and then it’ll be a twenty-minute run over t’ Upper Lake. I want to see Tim Mulligan over yonder t’ th’ store, but I’ll join yer on th’ train.”

Taking the hint, Walter put his duffle aboard the train beside the pack basket of his friend, and then, to kill time, started out to form a closer acquaintance with the town. From most of the houses thin columns of smoke and the odor of frying bacon or pork proclaimed that breakfast was being prepared. Occasionally he had glimpses of weary-faced women in faded calico gowns. One, standing in the doorway of her cabin, was barefooted. A frowzy-headed, dirty-faced little urchin stared at him from the shelter of her skirts. The men he met were for the most part rough, good-natured fellows, dressed in the flannel [22] shirt of the woods, their trousers thrust into high, laced, hobnailed boots. Several nodded kindly or exchanged a “howdy” with the bright-faced boy.

On his way back, as he neared a cabin somewhat apart from the others, he heard voices in angry dispute. Turning a corner of the cabin he was just in time to see a boy of about his own age, but a good head taller, strike a vicious blow at a whimpering hunchback. In a flash Walter confronted the astonished young ruffian, eyes flashing and fists doubled.

“You coward!” he shouted. “You miserable coward, to strike a boy smaller than yourself, and a cripple!”

For an instant the other stared. Then his face darkened with an ugly scowl, and he advanced threateningly.

“Get out av here! This ain’t any av your business, ye city dude!” he growled.

“I’ll make it my business when you hit a little fellow like that,” replied Walter, edging between the bully and his victim.

“Want ter foight?” demanded the other.

“No, I don’t,” said Walter, “but I want you to leave that little chap alone.”

[23] “Huh, yez do, do yez?” responded the other, and rushing in he aimed an ugly blow at Walter’s face. The fight was on.

And just here the young ruffian was treated to the greatest surprise of his bullying career. Instead of crushing his slight antagonist as he had contemptuously expected to, he lunged into empty space. The next instant he received a stinging blow fairly on the nose. For a moment he gasped from sheer surprise, then, with a howl of pain and rage, he rushed again.

To all appearances it was a most unequal match. The young backwoodsman was not only taller, but was heavy in proportion; his muscles were hardened by work and rough outdoor life in a sawmill village, and hard knocks had toughened him as well. In contrast, the city boy seemed slight and hopelessly at a disadvantage. But underneath that neat khaki jacket was a well-knit, wiry frame, and muscles developed in the home gymnasium. Moreover, Walter’s father believed in teaching a boy to take care of himself, and it was not for nothing that Walter had taken lessons in boxing and wrestling.

[24] As before, he avoided the rush by lightly side-stepping, driving in a vigorous left to the ear and following this with a right which raised a lump just under his opponent’s left eye. The latter backed away. Then he came in again, but more cautiously. He was beginning to respect this elusive antagonist who hit so hard, yet managed to get away untouched. It was all so new in his experience that he was utterly at a loss to know what to expect.

Round and round they circled, each watching for an opening. Suddenly Walter took the offensive. As he started to rush he slipped in the wet sawdust. His opponent saw his advantage and swung hard, but Walter caught the blow on his right forearm, and the next instant they were locked in a clinch. This was what the bully wanted. Now he would throw his antagonist and, once he had him down, that would end the battle, for his ethics knew no quarter for a fallen foe.

But again he reckoned without his host. Scientific wrestling was an unheard-of art to the young giant, while in the home gymnasium Walter had twice won the championship [25] for his weight. For a few minutes they swayed this way and that, then Walter secured the lock he was trying for, there was an instant of straining muscles, then the bully was pinned flat on his back.

A big hand fell on Walter’s shoulder. “Son,” said Big Jim, “I hate t’ break into yer morning exercise, but you an’ me hev an engagement at Upper Lake, and we’ve got jes’ two minutes t’ ketch thet train.”

Walter jumped up at once, and then held out his hand to the discomfited bully. “Will you shake?” he asked.

To the surprise of the delighted onlookers the fallen terror of the village arose and in a manly way, though sheepishly, shook the outstretched hand, for at heart he had the right stuff in him.

“Ye licked me fair an’ square,” he mumbled. “Oi wish ye’d show me some av thim thricks.”

“I will if I ever have a chance. You ought to be a Boy Scout,” shouted Walter as he and Big Jim sprinted for the train.