  Neither that day nor the following did the boys succeed in getting a single trout. It was an unforeseen calamity and they were wholly unprepared for it. At first, they could not understand it. They knew that the river teemed with fish. Up to this time, they had had no trouble in catching all they had required. That blazing hot noon when Sandy returned to camp empty-handed and reported that not one member of the countless schools of trout and white-fish, that literally darkened the stream, would rise to his bait, Dick could not believe his ears. “You couldn’t have tried very hard, Sandy,” he chided him. “Here, give me that line. You never were much of a fisherman, that is the trouble with you. You haven’t the patience, Sandy.” The young Scotchman relinquished the line, his eyes stormy. “I’ll admit I’m no fisherman,” he blurted, “but please don’t tell me that I didn’t try, because I did, or that I haven’t the patience because I have. I’ve caught nearly as many trout on this trip as you have. But they aren’t biting today at all. I think the river must be bewitched.” Dick smiled knowingly and confidently, unsheathed his hunting knife and cut a long alder pole. Then, winking at Toma, he hurried over to the river, sure in his belief that he’d show Sandy a thing or two about the gentle art of fishing. He baited his hook and cast his line. Repeatedly he whipped the swift water, grinning. In a moment he’d feel that sharp tug, experience that old familiar thrill. Poor Sandy! At best, he was only a half-hearted fisherman, had never learned to love the sport, had never entered into it with the enthusiasm and spirit that made for proficiency. The minute passed, but he was not discouraged. Back and forth his line flipped over the water. The smile left his face. He scowled, swung in his line, walked fifty or sixty yards upstream and tried again. An hour—two hours—he was very grim now, but he just couldn’t give up. There were fish here. He must get fish. They had no other food except clams and it was not possible to get many of them. Good Lord, what would happen if their one heretofore unfailing source of sustenance were cut off? Following their long tramp that previous night, they were all weak from hunger. He was so famished right now that he could even relish eating a dead crow. Despondently, he sat down on a rock, still whipping the water. A shadow appeared from behind him and he heard a voice: “What’s the matter, Dick? No catch ’em one yet?” Dick turned his head. He looked up into Toma’s serious face and gulped down a lump in his throat. “I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it!” he wailed. The young Indian regarded the river with a sober, thoughtful face. “Long time I been ’fraid about this,” he sighed. “All the time I hope mebbe I’m wrong. River too swift here to get many fish. No pools along here. Trout keep in central current an’ hurry on to better feeding place down the river.” “So that’s the reason. But, Toma, what are we going to do? We must eat, somehow, and for nearly thirty miles the river is just like this. Is it starvation? Has it come to that?” “Mebbe not starve, but get mighty hungry.” “Perhaps we could kill a few birds with stones,” Dick suggested hopefully. “I know better plan than that. We do like Indians before white men come. I make ’em bows an’ arrows. Only trouble is we no shoot straight at first.” “But what about the strings for our bows?” “We use fish-line.” Dick slid off the rock, his expression more hopeful. “All right, let’s set to work. I’ll help you, Toma. We’ll eat birds for dinner, squirrels—anything! Perhaps we might even be lucky enough to get a rabbit. If we don’t find something to eat pretty soon we’ll——” The words died in his throat. On that instant back at camp, Sandy let out a scream—a ringing, pulsating, vibrant, piercing scream of terror. Looking back, they perceived Sandy tearing along toward them, arms and legs swinging, hat gone and the loose sides of his unbuttoned jacket billowing up in the wind. While Dick stood there, wondering what it was all about, Toma stooped swiftly then straightened up, a rock in either hand, his cheeks the color of yellow parchment. At that moment, Dick caught sight of the apparition himself. His eyes popped and unconsciously he made a queer, choking noise in his throat. A thing that looked like a beast and yet, somewhat resembled a man, was making its way slowly down the steep bank toward their campfire. The horrible creature’s face was covered with a long black beard and the hair of his head straggled down over his eyes and fluffed out in a sinuous black wave around his shoulders. It was a man undoubtedly—but what a man! A skin of some sort had been wrapped and tied around his torso, but both his arms and legs were quite naked. In every sense—a wild man. His huge frame supported bulging muscles. His chest expanded like a barrel. He walked with a gliding motion. His head rotated from side to side and, during the breathless silence that followed Sandy’s arrival, they could hear him clucking and grunting to himself. The three boys waited there, rigid with terror. Never before had they seen a wild man. His awful appearance, his constant gibbering, his bobbing head and fearful eyes reminded Dick of gorillas and huge hairy apes, whose pictures he had often studied in his natural history book at school. When the hideous creature had turned from a momentary inspection of their campfire and commenced gliding toward them, with one accord they shrieked and fled. They had no thought of their sore feet now, neither were they aware of the incessant, gnawing pains of hunger. In a great crisis of this sort, the mind has a peculiar tendency to become wholly subjective to the feelings of instinct. Instinct inherited from a thousand generations of jungle-prowling ancestors, told them to flee—and they fled. |
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